


"The House That Could Not Reach Midnight"

by chroniclesofatimelord



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Horror - Fandom, Science Fiction - Fandom
Genre: Adair Sesay, Gen, Irisa Cooper, Paisley White, Rakshasas, The House - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 15:59:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10857303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chroniclesofatimelord/pseuds/chroniclesofatimelord
Summary: A classic haunted house tale told through the POV of the house itself. The Doctor and TJ finds themselves locked up and trapped inside a living house while they learn of something more terrifying resides within the abyss beneath the house itself. Can the house reach the hour of midnight or all the souls will be lost forever in darkness?This story "The House That Could Not Reach Midnight" is written by Robert J. Medding.





	"The House That Could Not Reach Midnight"

"The House That Could Not Reach Midnight"   
By Robert J. Meddings

Part One  
Chapter one  
With a booming effect, the hammers struck the bell with a whispered, mute echo that was like a sagging thing. I could hear it ring with a haunting note while the clockwork made a grinding effort to move without success. It sounded more like an iron gate slipping and sliding. The mechanisms seemed to be stuck again.   
I watched the long hand remained idle on the grandfather clock between the minutes of eternity while the small hand struggled in peerless rage. Now the face of the grandfather clock read 11:55 p.m. in the splendid oak looking smoothly, yet blindingly old.   
It seemed to move slowly like everything else in this place. Why was that? I felt odd with the way the seconds move by with fatigue.   
What was a place without the comforts of home? What would a house be without the familiar domestic scene grabbing for attention? Slipping along the edge of the room, and the wooden tables and the choir of chairs, floated the subdued ilk of shadows that grew like a plague.   
It made me feel sick sometimes.   
Could it be a sickness in this place? It did feel a little balmy, perhaps damp in some corners. Now the traditional offerings of the clock still made those broken sounds like a clogged rupture that met the room with this dramatic noise.   
Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Chapter two  
This place catered to the traditions of old, and the weight of the years pressed into the his house with a resounding blur. I could tell you this. It is very old. I know this.   
The rest of this place was sleeping.   
I could still hear the clock, with deliberate cue above all else, grow into the victim of a terrible price. Moments came to a standstill while the fractions of wind grew like static chills in the great hallow. The grandfather clock stood on the edge of midnight while the gulf of the house remained rigid, still, a nothing place. It made me feel sad.   
I heard the sound of screeching engines, loud and bold, burst into a frightening cluster of noises that devoured everything here. It must be a ploy! No! It was real as the beasts of Bast!   
This hurricane of noise, bombastic with a familiar wheezing, tore into the view with the engines of time.   
Now the sounds grew louder, stronger, breaking into the silence with a grinding circle of more noises that made its announcement. I listened to the blue police box emerged on the grassy knoll right outside of me, making a fine contrast with its stagnant countryside.   
It was like an invasion of civilization into the brook end of the English countryside, sparse with rich tufts of grass. Only smothered with greater darkness. The engines continued like a coughing lung. 

Chapter three   
This old house, with its creepy structure, sat on the hill with an affectionate grin that looked like it was also rotting. It looked like an orchestra of broken shadows.   
I watched the woman step out of the blue police box with observing eyes, her long hair sprinkled around her pretty features, a gentle score of beauty that remained a dazzling sight.   
Who was she? Where did she come from? Her glaring eyes penetrated while she made a sigh. Her noticeable dimple became a great feature. Her eyes looked at the bone brittle walls thrusting with mundane existence.   
“I really had enough of haunted houses,” the Doctor said.   
Who did she think she was? How rude and critical of her! I did not like critics and she was rattling off her snarky words like an overpaid hack. She stepped towards from the blue box without being afraid.  
Maybe it's my turn to criticize her?   
She wore the ravages of an old coat that hanged on her like brown paper bag, crinkly and wrinkled. And it suited the more sharp woman’s dress sense as she wore aviator-like sports jacket which looked good on her along with the wild orchid of ruffles for a shirt.   
The coat whipped around the cutting figure of her slender body which swayed with a magnificent presence. Her hands dove into pockets while her face wore a frown. I thought the clothes made her look like an old woman. It's true.   
I watched her archer friend join her as he left the police box too, getting clear of what looked like a cramped space. How could such a blue box hold two people? How much space was in there?   
I took a sneak peak into the strange machine. Inside was a different tale that would leave on in wonders, opening to a giant world that lived inside a cosmic hum.   
This new man carried a bow over his shoulder while looking more like a warrior champion in civilian clothes.   
His hands shut the doors behind him, remembering his duties, before catching up with the Doctor who was already a few steps ahead of him.   
His lady friend hardened her glare at the house that stole a moment in passing, a fetching sight seeping into shadows. The house seemed to mock her with a new tomorrow. This place surged with a trapped feeling that stirred from the belly of the wooden beast.   
I welcomed the new guests. The man stepped alongside the Doctor who stood on the rolling grass. No skies for them, only space. Not a cloud in sight. He kicked at the ground with a little annoyance. And the English house doted on the possible arrival of more guests.   
New guests. How nice. I listened to them talk. 

Chapter four  
“Seems like any old house to me,” TJ commented. “Abandoned.”  
“Well, considering the last trip to an old castle, it's a safe bet to assume that no house is innocent.”  
The Doctor began to move her hands in her pockets, hoping to find the right item she's carried around. Her expression tightened as her fingers roamed through her pockets.   
She checked around the inexhaustible reach of her pockets, digging deeper. She felt like she was looking for a needle in a haystack when it came to searching her long, bundled coat.   
“It's a good time to use the sonic screwdriver,” the Doctor continued.   
She pulled out the device from her right hand pocket, smiling slightly, and set the controls on it. The sonic machine hummed with an electronic fever, her fingers trailing over the mental contours.   
I listened to the device make a humming noise. The principles were still the same while the bubbling of energetic fusion allowed for the Doctor to make a full sweep of the house. I could not explain the device. It was odd.   
She made a disconcerting face as she felt something was wrong. She made another sweep as she lifted the sonic screwdriver into a windmill motion. The Doctor stopped the device as the readings baffled her. She shook her head.   
“According to the screwdriver, it's telling me this is an ordinary house,” the Doctor said. “Maybe the screwdriver is faulty?”  
“I could do with an ordinary house for a while,” TJ said.   
“Not me. There's nothing more annoying than a sharp case of boringness.”  
“I beg to differ.”  
“We're not on earth, are we?” TJ said.   
“That much is obvious.”  
The Doctor took a small stroll towards the horizon that flattened with a eerie beauty speaking with a gentle blur of darkness that surrounded the skies. She felt a breath of relief as she stopped in her tracks just short of the edge, peering over the depths of the abyss that stretched into nothing. Her face became an enlightened beam of intellectual glee.  
What was this? It was like they were on an island floating in space, and the edges of the ground were cut off by the great chasm. It was like the ground poked out as a cliff of a mountain, except this wasn't a mountain. The Doctor could see the edges teetering over the deep cosmos that wavered all around her.   
Below, above, all around, the endless fathoms of space greeted her with thrusting sparkles. Her eyes followed the cutting outline of the ground which stopped at a sheer drop-off. She watched the ripples of infinite wonders glaring back at her.   
Indeed. What was this place? 

Chapter five  
Maybe it was a little frightening seeing the neglected house, looking like a sagging, old prop, sitting there on the ground which was just a giant piece of rock floating in space. How it was suspended in the middle of space like a forgotten chuck of earth?  
I saw a lot of wear and tear, but the ground looked like a blotch of ruin that looked like old age happened here. Or, perhaps, the dirt was simply trampled with further neglect.   
There was the edge.   
And the rest of the cosmos shifting all around them.   
The Doctor could hear her friend TJ rummaging over the ground, his footsteps growing closer. She made a half-turn, her coat swinging around her delightful figure like a sober sheet, and lifted an index finger to suggest he didn't take another step.   
“I was hoping that we would get something normal for once,” TJ said.   
“What do you think?” the Doctor said.   
“Do you think there might be some trouble getting into the house now? This place looks more dangerous than a shooting contest.”  
“Well, what else?”  
“Feels like this piece of dirt has been ripped out from the earth.”  
“That's a possible notion. I wonder what's keeping us here without us shooting off into space,” the Doctor added.   
“What do you mean?”  
“Nothing can remain on the moon because there's no gravity. We stay on the surface of the planet due to gravity. I wonder how there's gravity here,” the Doctor pointed out.  
“You wonder about a lot of things,” TJ said.   
“Don't you think it's interesting we're also breathing air?” the Doctor said.   
“It did cross my mind.”  
“Throw a rock over there in that direction,” the Doctor continued. “Might make for a good demonstration.”  
“I got a better idea.”  
“Don't you think that could be a little...”  
TJ grabbed the arrow from the quiver that's strapped on his back, and he made a movement that was lightening fast. He made a gasping sound as he sucked in some air, his lips tightened, and his start figure going into a stance reminded me of a Chinese Robin Hood. I saw him letting the bowstring strum like a guitar string.   
And the arrow flew into a piercing slip before the Doctor could finish her sentence. The flashing wooden piece deflected off what was an invisible wall and flung back into the ground, impaling it not more than a few inches from the Doctor's feet.   
“...dangerous?” the Doctor said.   
“Sorry.”  
“I really wish you would stop thinking with your arrows.”  
“And you tend to be overly dramatic at times. I bet you're a hit at the drama school,” TJ countered.   
The Doctor leaned over as she bent down to grab the back end of the arrow with her twisting fingers, pulling it out of the ground. She moved with great impatience as she whirled the arrow back to her friend's hands. She gave it back to him with a slight disapproval as she made a sour look on her face.  
“I think this belongs to you,” the Doctor said.   
“Aren't you worried that I could've made a dent in that unseen wall?” TJ said.   
“You wouldn't have,” the Doctor said. “You see how much science tells you with a few tests?”  
“Show off,” TJ said.   
“I rather say that the forcefield is being maintained by some energy somewhere.”  
“The house?” TJ commented.  
“I don't know. I've already used my sonic screwdriver which tells me the house isn't the source. So where is the forcefield drawing its energy?”  
“That house looks broken down. A perfect place for fears.”  
“I think we ought to explore it,” the Doctor beamed. “Not that we have much of a choice anyway.”

Chapter six  
I watched the pair of explorers, testing their courage, made their way to this lofty house that spread like the wings of old, and the stillness offered a distorted wail that drifted inside the looming shadows that populated it. Cold rage crawled over the windows with twisting pursuit while dust sprinkled from the ledges like salt pouring from a shaker.   
With the rolling countryside, and the fine broken tiers of a wraparound fence bordering part of the edge, it really made you think you were standing on English grounds. It made me feel nostalgic. The grass twisted with odd life while the rising hills proved a canopy of green stretched across what seemed to be a few miles in diameter. Was this place the last stop in purgatory?   
TJ caught up with the Doctor as he walked alongside her, and they cranked with extra energy as they moved towards the waking doors that waited for their approach. I didn't get new guests often these days.

Chapter seven  
The Doctor knocked on the widespread doors that groaned with a creak as she felt her knuckles brushed against the wood with a confident introduction. Their foot traffic stopped before the yawning door that towered over them like a giant message in oak.   
She knocked again as she felt the house sat before her like an idle audience that remained bored. When she looked across the wandering garden trivial in its delights, she noticed the single gargoyle statue sitting like a Buddhist in the middle of it. The Doctor made a soft expression with her face that suggested she didn't take a liking to the stone beastie. She thought it was too much a distraction.   
Now the winds of time seemed to bellow against her thoughts as she waited with greater impatience. Her humming voice leaped from her lips as if she was trying to remember the name of the song she heard once.   
No one answered.   
“I guess I'll have to make my own announcement,” the Doctor said.   
She flattened her hands against the doors as she gave a solid push, and she wondered what arcane secrets would be resting inside the belly of the abandoned house. She saw the entrance cracked a little as she pushed harder, her arms taunt against the growling tirade of wood. 

Chapter eight  
While she pushed with all her might, her friend TJ came to the rescue as he added his extra strength into pressing the wide wooden doors open. On the facade of the doors was the demon's face affronted with burning eyes, a torrid set of jutting teeth and a mouth foetid with fiery hatred.   
And the nose of the devil's head was actually a door knocker. The Doctor muttered “nonsense” when she saw the demon's engraved face carved into the wood. She wasn't paying her respects to it. She was ignoring it.  
So she was someone who didn't take much stock in superstitions? We'll see about that! Nothing better than to persuade the rational mind with the wonders of weirdness with foetid darkness.   
Everyone had their fears. It was part of the human mind. I knew what pulled at the people's thoughts. Their guilt lingered in them. Their souls were like poison wells to be dipped.  
The Doctor leaned more against the doors before the edges of the doors swept open, yawning like a bold mouth that engulfed with a seeping darkness. TJ stepped inside the old house with the Doctor at last.   
Now the creaks echoed through the setting like a sifting noise, and the rumbles of life crept in the walls like a burrowing. Aches of creaking, and cracking of wood, gave a gentle muse of gothic cheer throughout the entire hallways. There were all the ingredients of a haunted house.   
Sitting across the floor, in a sad state, was a tiger skin laid out in loving welcome whereas the gentle fireplace crackled with ominous life that blistered with hot kisses. This ire of warmth hanged in the air while the ceremony of shadows shimmered on the far walls. The furniture looked old with dazzling age, crimped with blotches that reminded you of liver spots, and the bookcases offered a musky spell that was sharply repellent with a bite of dust. Lurking hallways, like gutted tunnels, made an overreach to the very back of the neglected house.   
What of the place with the fireplace to remind you of the olden days of little electricity? And here it was like a large ode to the days of yesterday. The brickwork of the hearth sat in the lobby space like an intrusion from the past. It became the centerfold of spooks along with the winding stairs that greeted the guests with an eerie spiral.  
“I've been noticing a lot of stairways lately,” the Doctor said.  
“You're not the only one,” TJ said.   
“It's probably nothing.”

Chapter nine  
This was indeed my favorite place of the house. The fireplace. Something about the fireplace that was still lit like the flames of heaven which inclined to snicker at them. The dancing pages of fire offered a soothing presence that proved deceit.   
I knew the questions that were running through their thoughts. Who lit the fire? Why was the house cold like a death's door? And was there anyone friendly living here?   
What did you think? It was a haunted house. I liked haunted houses. Everyone should.   
This trigger of blackness, like cheap company to the house, limped with moving shadows while hinting at the deep-seated chill that clung to the walls.   
The choking gulf of the fireplace spread with a false smile. Now this figure of brick and fire remained against the walls of old. Everything seemed older than it should be.   
The picture hanged above the fireplace with penetrating eyes, his features longing with little compassion. His features grew oily, numbed with gray and the bone-charred skin made him look gaunt like a sadistic toothpick.  
With a swerve on her heels, the Doctor turned to the fireplace which dazzled with busy flames. She grabbed the collars to her coat as she lifted her eyes to view the dispassionate the fireplace which settled like creaking dog.   
“Why can't we ever go someplace nice?” TJ said.   
“Said the little children in the gingerbread house. I know what you mean.”  
“I'm not sure what that little quote means, but do you think this place have ghosts?”  
“That would be utterly foolish. I do admit that there is something hiding in the shadows. Please be careful where you step,” the Doctor said.  
“Hope you're not going to jump behind the sofa for cover,” TJ replied.  
“Wasn't it your Chinese culture that treated the number four as a superstition?” the Doctor said.  
“Yeah, you're right.”   
“I think we should leave this place,” the Doctor said.   
“Really?”  
“Yes. It feels ominous and I don't like it. I'm going to leave this place now, and you're going to follow me.”  
“That's a first.”

Chapter ten  
When the couple reached the middle of the lobby, the front doors collapsed into a roaring close, shutting with a crying echo that tore around them. The ringing shutting of the doors wrapped around the room with a final note of a dark opera. Only this wasn't an opera, it was a horror story.   
With clutching hands, the Doctor turned slightly around with an annoyed face as she glanced with skirting eyes. I could see it in her face now. She didn't understand this place. Something bothered her in the shadows.   
It was only this house and them.   
Nothing more.   
“Maybe it was the wind,” TJ said.   
“I don't think so,” the Doctor replied. “The trees outside were perfectly still, and there was the forcefield that would have blocked out the slightest gust. It must be something else.”  
“If you say so.”  
“Yes, I say so,” the Doctor bit back.   
Sometimes the Doctor seemed like a mangy dog ready to grit its teeth, her mood swings rushing back and forth like sloshing storm of emotions. Her attitude regarding the supernatural was setting her off slightly, and she did not like being put against all odds when it came to old haunts.   
She was like a moody girl lashing out at the shadows, preferring hard facts to the romanticism of old ideas. Her eyes were like charcoal fire.   
She signaled her friend to avail themselves to the wide birth of stairs leaping upwards in a giant slate, venturing upwards with welcome ease. The air grew thin with dryness and the walls clambered closer like huddled shadows. Here the tongue of stairs fell into a gothic cheer which inched further towards the above balcony.   
Now the gleeful beast of the house felt like a scorching cauldron ready to tip over, and the runaway debate of facts and horrors presented themselves here like extra props on a feature movie set. I liked that the Doctor was trying to figure things out, but couldn't.   
“From here on, we're not splitting up,” the Doctor said.   
“That seems like a good idea,” TJ said. 

Chapter eleven  
Her brief whim led her and the companion into another hallway, and she regretted having this turn into another one of her challenges. It was too late now.   
There was slight mold and dirty blotches breaking across the thrusting walls that stretched further into the willowy spaces of the house. Worse, there grew some back story that needed investigating in this place.   
The Doctor matched on without being bothered by the flimsy state of the house, defying the shadows. Instead she was like a steely mind ready to tackle on any problems.   
The silliest notion of haunted houses did not cross her mind anymore. She was a harbinger of science. Even then, the cobbled house creaked with old groans while the floors ached with creaks under her footsteps.   
She blatantly pushed the door to the first room down the hall, to her right, showing that she was unafraid. She could slay thick shadows with her glare and the bold frame of her jutting figure welcomed a good debate. There would be no skulking about for her.   
She looked inside the room.   
One would expect a belfry of bats to spring from the dark of the room, but there was only the guest room complete with chairs and a bed covered with white sheets. I always found this room to be a little dull.   
She leaned into the room while her hand remained on the doorknob, her face swaying in the sprinkled dark. The blackness seemed to spread like wings in the arcane ravages of the room, but it was only shadows.   
“Nothing here,” TJ said.   
“Did you really think there would be?” the Doctor said with a scuffle.   
The Doctor turned to the next room, seething herself at the very crux of the door, her feet testing the line of room while waiting for the house to conspire against her with a hands-on conflict. There was still nothing.   
She gave a sideways look at TJ, but didn't really need his permission to enter the room. It was the second room to the right, further down the decorated hallway that was filled with many contrasts, gentle and rage, old and new. The candles seemed to flicker with an eternity of fire.   
So many strangers! I wasn't used to it. The Doctor went ahead with a barging motion as she pressed the flat of her hand against the door. She listened to the long creak that spilled outward like a ghastly stir. 

Chapter twelve  
Even though the next guest room was dark as the blackest den, the interior shapes could be discerned by the twilight brush of the hallway candlelights that poured into this place. The walls seemed to scowl at the Doctor's intrusion, and the dueling movements smudged the room with a primordial shaking.   
Now the movement could seen better when the Doctor widened the door gap to welcome the brighter surge of candlelights. Someone in a sleeping bag on the bed lifted up like he had a stroke.   
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!” he shouted.   
Several flashlights erupted from the jumbled bags that shook, teetered and jiggled with fright. The one boy who shouted looked like one of those geeks you'd find at a nearby science fiction convention.   
The others looked like a boy and girl on the other side of the room. It looked more like a slumber party was going on.  
My guests. 

Chapter thirteen   
The tall, black boy sharing the same side of the room with the girl shined the flashlight at the Doctor in a circle of brightness. The breaking embrace of shadows gathered around the room while the young people, hanging on to the piercing flashlights which strobe the room.   
The Doctor remained steady in the gallows of the dark, her fine hourglass figure outlined by the hallway light. Her pretty face framed by the long curtains of dark hair that snuggled softly against her neck. She tried to make a smile, but felt the urge to rip the boy's lights out of their hands to stop them from shining them in her eyes.   
The black kid said, “Oh, you must be tonight's entertainment.”  
“Wha-aaaaat?” the Doctor said.   
“Oh, must I be jealous now?” the girl said.   
“That woman sure looks awful fine to me.”   
“What is this?” the Doctor said.   
“And feisty too! Yum yum!”  
Everyone was awake in the room where there was no electrical buzz, only a faint trickle from the hallway light that poured into the harlots of darkness. The teasing ploy of the one boy was annoying the Doctor, seeing that he was barely out of his teens.   
The foetid house seeped with sickness while the ill-gotten blackness parted the room to reveal all the two boys and girl, probably college age.   
“To whom should I be addressing?” the Doctor said.   
“You're not the tour guide I was hoping for?” the black boy said.   
“Not at all.”  
“Or tonight's adult show?”  
“Certainly not.”  
I giggled like an overgrown child hearing this, and the rest of the hallways gave a sigh as if it slouched in the shadows under the still flickering candles. It was no longer empty with people here.  
This place would feel like home if it weren't for the pressing walls grinding with a crude presence while the floors met with a contradictory glee. Being civil was no longer a use for a place like this.  
As the Doctor stepped into the middle of the room, tilting with rare confidence, she craned her neck to study the ceilings around her. What was it that she had a bad feeling about? It was such nonsense to be bothered by steep hunches.   
The young people shifted a little, maybe frightened by this magnanimous effort of the Doctor to appear authoritative to them. 

Chapter fourteen  
The floor creaked under her feet while the black kid, no longer shy, lifted his eyes to view her gentle curves with a wicked glare. He hugged his bed sheet some. He belonged to hormone high.   
Though the Doctor wore what looked like a man's clothing custom-made for a woman, fitting her frame. A little odd, the boy thought.   
“I did ask who you are,” the Doctor commanded.   
The talkative boy got up into a sitting position while he pointed to the pudgy kid first on the other end of the room.   
“The one's Paisley White,” the black boy said.   
“I hate that name,” the pudgy kid snarled. “I should have disowned my mother.”  
“Well, the girl is my cousin Irisa Cooper and I'm Adair Sesay. I'm just along for the ride.”  
“Hullo,” the girl said.   
“We were having a small bet on who would last the longest here.”  
“Who are you?” Paisley said.   
“I'm the Doctor. This is my friend TJ to whom I owe my life. And you probably will too.”  
“Charmed, I'm sure,” TJ said.  
“We just arrived,” the Doctor continued.   
“Are you one of those people who come here to debunk the house?” Paisley said. “I hope so!”  
“Perhaps,” the Doctor said.   
“Well, you must be one of those crackpot university professors. You dress like one.”  
The Doctor sighed to herself as she muttered, “I must really do something about my fashion sense.”  
“I don't know,” Adair said to his friend across the room. “I think she's kind of a hot.”  
“Dude, she's old enough to be your mother.”  
“You couldn't begin to imagine,” the Doctor interrupted. “I need to know more about this place and what you're doing here.”  
Adair blurted out: “Note: Controlling, commanding, likes to be in the center stage.”  
“What am we doing here?” Paisley snickered. “Don't you know? This place is haunted.”

Chapter fifteen  
Now here was someone who understood! I could feel a kinship with the fat kid with the round face and the stupid shirt. I could have told him that it was haunted. I'll show him instead. Soon.   
Paisley White gathered his bag up on into his lap like he was trying to cuddle a big, furry cat, his hands scrambling to keep the a hold. That bag looked ready to explode, seeing that there was too much stuffed into it.   
He grabbed a donut from his bag while nibbling on it. He wore bottle-corked glasses that were thick and cumbersome, the frames hanging a little too low on the anchor of his nose. Paisley did have some trouble pushing the glasses into place again, and again.   
Now the others like Adair was very black as he could be mistaken for a Muslim too, but his strong British accent, and gravel voice, spoke of African lore.   
His cousin Irisa looked rather pretty, brown colored, a little restless like she's got a party to go to. Her howling hair saddled around fine features that were strong looking for a woman. Irisa looked like she didn't want to lose herself in this house.   
While they shared opposite ends of the bed, they weren't not tangled like lovers would be. Instead they remained apart with a fair distance. The room coughed with clutching shadows.  
This place didn't seem to let them go.   
This house seemed to anchor you with threads of gripping deceit. With grasping hands, and clashing harmony of distorted shapes, it would pull you into a deep place. Adair Sesay switched on the flashlight as he circled around the room he was in with a strobing light that banished the shadows for a moment.   
He showed the guest room in all its finest glory, showing the rocking chair that sank like old cheekbones under the penetrating light. In the corner of the room stood a small wooden desk, probably made from oak, giving off an aged sense. There was a roughness to it.   
“As you can see, there's no electricity here,” Adair said.   
“I've noticed the lack of light switches in the house,” the Doctor said.   
“There's something I don't like about the candles. Go ahead and try to blow one out.”  
The Doctor took his advice as she sure-footed her way around the door before finding a hallway candlelight that fluttered like a tiny demon never running out of breath.   
Taking a deep breath, the Doctor blew out the candle which flickered into nothing. And with a sudden beat, and a surprising gasp, the candle came back again like a stubborn flicker. The Doctor raised her eyebrows as she was fascinated by the refusal of the candles to die away.   
“They're all like that in the house,” Adair said. “You try to blow one out, and it keeps coming back.”  
“Not so simple trickery,” the Doctor said. “Perhaps there is some sort of energy source...”  
As she studied the candlelight, her interest piqued. Whatever else, the Doctor would not adhere to the notion of magic which was subscribed by more sophomoric types.   
“Interesting,” the Doctor said as she returned to the crowded guest room.   
“It's a bet that brought us here,” Irisa said. “My brother wouldn't believe in that sort of thing, so Paisley here dared him to go this old house in Hastings, England.”  
“How nice,” the Doctor commented.   
“They claim it's the scariest house in England,” Paisley said.   
“I recognized one of the residents of the house. There's a stench of darkness I don't like here despite his infamousy.”  
“Shhh!” Irisa said.   
“What?”   
“I don't want our new guest criticizing the house like that.”  
“No, I assure you, I'm interested. What is it?” the Doctor said.   
Paisley cleared his throat, “Hastings is kind of a strange town with some bad vibes. Those who live here find arguments, plenty fighting and crime is at a disturbing level.”  
“What's the proof?”  
“Hastings is a pithole. You feel like you're trudging along when you're here, and things pull at you. It feels dirty being here,” Paisley said.  
“I don't know if there would be any connection. That sounds like just the sign of the times,” the Doctor corrected.  
“That's why we came to the house in Hastings. It's like we were drawn to it,” Paisley said.   
“Or rather, he was,” Adair said while pointing at the fat boy.  
“You're not helping,” Paisley complained.   
“I didn't believe any of it until I started seeing the whisper shadows,” Adair said.   
With a change of mind, and a sudden incline, the Doctor grabbed the chair from the desk as she propped it in the middle of the room. Her challenging figure straddled the chair backwards as her legs hooked over the sides, her arms resting over the back of the chair.   
She leaned over the chair with a decided interest. Her hair hanged like soft curtains around her face, sweeping with a mute change. Her lips stirred with the softness of red.   
“Tell me about them,” the Doctor said. 

Chapter sixteen  
The others exchanged glances while they fell into a greater unease. It was like they were being pampered by the shifting darkness that held them at random.   
And now this new woman was trying to stir a hornet's nest here. She was a rogue who tried to keep the peace, and yet wanted something to rise to meet her in conflict.   
She shifted like an audience giddy for another story, her towering figure blazing in the tossed candlelight that caressed her outline. Her mind was always swirling with new ideas. Brushing her hair aside, the Doctor nodded for Adair to keep going.   
“Well, you know how you feel something brushing your hand behind you when you're walking?” Adair said. “And there's nothing next to you. It's like that.”  
“It's the adrenaline rushes caused by stress,” the Doctor explained.   
“You get that feeling when you're in the house, and the shadows seem to pass through here,” Adair continued. “I remember seeing something move around at night like a shark. It skirts by the bed and shifts around without being seen. It looked like a small child, but with adult eyes.”  
“Not really a good description, is it?” the Doctor complained.   
“I think it doesn't want to be seen.”  
“The hair is all wrong,” Paisley added. “It's like trying to hide the eyes with its excess hair.”  
“You've seen them too?” the Doctor said.  
“Is this going to be one of those talks? Because I didn't like what I saw. Makes me sick.”  
“And you?” the Doctor said as she turned to the girl.   
Irisa Cooper waited before she could answer. Her family ties with cousin Adair was through his aunt. Her mother, his aunt, worked as a receptionist at the middle school, but she didn't know anything about this game they were playing. No doubt she would have kittens if she did.   
The more she thought about it, the more dried her throat became as if the fear throttled her. She didn't like the sound of her own voice: “Yeah. I saw it too. You remember, Adair, how when we were kids you hid that fake hand under my bed and told me it was a dead body. Well, this is scarier.”  
The passing silence filled the room like suffocating tension, gripping, toiling, and the house became this parched ruin of familiar settings winged by the shadows.   
Who lived here in the nobility of night, a this grand gesture of falsehood, while the gathering darkness would make itself at home here. Now the unruly passengers of shadows, like a swaying terrorism sought to cling to the walls until the mood soaked the room. I liked the quiet.   
I could tell you that the darkness was my friend. And I did not mind introducing my friends to the new guests. I was keen on having some alone-time before these people dropped in.   
“Hey, how did you get here? Have you got a transport?” Irisa said. “Can you get us out of here?”  
“That's the problem,” the Doctor said. “I'm stuck here too. The house, er trapped us in here too.”  
“Oh, that's fantastic. You're a bunch of help,” Irisa snapped.  
“That makes all of us stuck,” Paisley said.   
“I guess I'll be missing that Cibbo Motto concert.”  
Adair grabbed the cell phone out from his pocket, and banged it a little. He snapped the back of his hand against it, hoping to get it running. He was sitting straighter now, more aware of his surroundings.   
His hand rubbed the back of his neck as if he was picking up some bad vibes about this place.   
There was only a reckless signal on the cell, nothing more.   
Adair continued, “None of our cell phones are working now. They all read a bunch of zeroes.”  
“Let me see that,” the Doctor said.   
“It's like we're lost. More than lost. Maybe this house is more lost than we are,” Paisley said.   
“Shhh. I don't want the children hearing us,” Adair said.   
“Sounds like the Rakshasas,” the Doctor added. “Thought they were a myth...”  
“What's that?”  
“It's nothing.”  
The noise seemed to crowd the house now like seeping echoes. And the unfortunate guests lifted their heads to listen. It was like hearing a nightmare falling into the walls.

Part two  
Chapter seventeen  
With a mechanical mind, and a passing interest in primitive gadgets, the Doctor looked over the cell phone while checking for reception.   
Her fingers worked with incredible speed while her mind was like a crazy maze of ideas crossing one another. She looked like she was going to turn the cell phone inside out.   
Despite young Adair's protests, the Doctor dismantled the circuits the way an engineer performed on a high technological beast. She moved with the ease of a puzzle solver as she needed to get to the heart of the matter.   
“Do you mind not wrecking the cell?” Adair complained. “It's the only one I got.”  
“I'll make it better so you can make a phone call through the seven galaxies without getting a bill,” the Doctor quipped.   
This room shifted while the cracks widened with despair, and the ceilings dragged with a limp wide-mouthed sadness. It was also one of my favorites. I called it the black room.   
The Doctor got up from her chair as she began to investigate the windows with hands grating against the wood, and she soon pulled out the sonic screwdriver which hummed with an electrical burst.   
She checked the window, and the walls next, like a surgeon looking for a weakness in a dying body. She moved around like the wind, her chorus of footsteps clamping down on the floor. With a magnificent haste, the Doctor looked at the readings.   
“I don't understand,” the Doctor said. “This house reads as perfectly normal. It's just windows and doors. Even the candles.”  
With a turn, and another turn, the Doctor looked over the window sill and the desk to solidify her opinion. When she moved, she was at the top of her game as her eyes cut back and forth. She bit softly on her lip as she slipped away like a brooding storm, always with elegance.   
Her fingers held the device as she made sideways steps, hoping to encompass the whole of the house with her sweeping gestures. This woman wasn't going to give up so easy. Even TJ, leaning against the door frame, took a moment to figure out what the Doctor was doing.   
She looked like a madwoman who tried to woe the answers from her surroundings. The Doctor's hand covered over the door frame now as the sonic screwdriver twitched with a wincing pulse.   
“Nothing here,” the Doctor said with disappointment.   
“So far, you're just a crazy party crasher,” Paisley said.   
“I'm only a passerby,” the Doctor said.   
“As for crazy, I'll plea the fifth,” Paisley said. “What are you a doctor of exactly?”   
“Stop asking questions. You're becoming annoying.”  
TJ lifted from the doorjamb before getting comfortable on his feet. His taunt outline might be considered hunky for some women, but it was his eyes, like a cat, that may be one of his most attractive features.   
His Chinese features made women feel like they're trapped in a core of ecstasy. He was a rare beauty in the Asian world despite the shortness of his height. I could not help notice he was the strong man while the Doctor was the brains.   
Or, rather, he was the silent type, his long, narrow eyes glazed across the room like a man who held his opinion back. The Doctor did all the talking while he was like an extra on the set.   
Her figure etched against the silky night like a warrior in deep thought while his own male form conducted in the best mannerism known in Asia. And Asian people didn't like to interrupt others. His bow arched over his shoulder, his head craning slightly after the Doctor when she passed him again.   
“We have places in China like this,” TJ announced. “Some places are lonely, some of them are angry. Ghosts are like echoes from the past.”  
“I hope we're not in an angry place,” Adair said.   
“I thought you didn't believe in this stuff,” Irisa said.   
“I know I'm starting not to like it,” Adair snapped.   
“I think this house fell into some sort of abyss,” Paisley said. “It's a place where ghosts drift through. That's why there are so many cold spots.”  
“That's... actually good thinking. There's only one thing,” the Doctor said with an interruption.  
The Doctor remained in place in conjunction with the house crackling with life. It made a shudder that spilled into the walls like some old language. Was it trying to say something to you? Was it telling you to get out? And yet the others did not hear it. Only parts of the house whined with a creaking voice. So many weathered feelings sagged in this house.   
And there were so many secrets here in a house big enough to keep them hidden. The Doctor crossed her arms in a very brazen way, her features defiant as always.   
“There are no such things as ghosts,” the Doctor announced.

Chapter eighteen  
With a roar, I listened to the hush in the hallways could be felt in a wintery chill sweeping across the bordered rooms. It sounded to me more of a wail, a soft cry, growing louder like the house became possessed.   
Sometimes I grew moody. Now this mood changed spread throughout the rest of the4 place—a piercing poetry of noise, shuffled between the doors which added to the bleak cheerfulness.   
Something was growing awake. I could feel it. I thought the Doctor could feel it too. She lifted her finger to her lips to suggest silence.   
“Shh!” the Doctor uttered.   
There it was again! I could feel it! Somewhere else the clockwork grew bothersome with the wrenching of metal grinding each other and a wheezing sound coughing from the inside of walls.   
It was as if the constant sounds, aching like madness, were goading the guests into wandering in the house. Was this house going mad?   
I heard the clock in the house made a struggle through an eternity of defeat, always hitting the moment of 11:55 p.m. where the clock choked, screeched to a halt.   
With a fierce slur, I felt the hammers could not strike the bells as they held in a frozen-like state. I felt this place sink into a long darkness. And there was nothing I could do about it.   
The secret clock fell into the in-between, that clock, never reaching the promise of midnight. It simply creaked, cowled with a relentless ramble, always keeping still like a stuck pig. It loitered for a while before giving up, springs in the clock making odd whirls and fastidious sounds. The clock was writhing.   
Now the grandfather clock bellowed with an outraged sigh, caught in its own prison of nothingness. Its timely countenance showed the always same moment of 11:55 where the hammers could not clang like old burdens. It could never move on. Nothing blinked in this house that remained calm like an wooden carcass. 

Chapter nineteen   
The winds picked up again from somewhere, a mystery gulf of gusts blowing from inward, and TJ stepped out to view the outstretched corridor with a passing gaze. He titled his head as he craned his neck, turning on the peels of his feet.   
It became more real as he listened, keeping a steady pose in the middle of the hallway. The candlelights continued to glitter with their impossible blazes. There grew a musky smell that poured into the air.   
“I think I hear footsteps,” TJ said.   
“I'm sure you imagined it,” the Doctor said.   
“Why are you so bent on not believing?”   
“Because I rely on cold-hearted facts, not the romance of superstitions.”  
“What if there's nothing in the universe that could explain something. That would be supernatural, wouldn't it?”  
“Pure fancy. There's always an explanation for something.”  
“This house is a mystery!”   
“Twaddle! It's probably stuck between dimensions. We get a lot of that!”  
Now I made a soft noise that stirred within the spreading loins of darkness, reaching out to break the stillness of the house. And yet I sneezed. With the sneeze the noise had gone. It became a perfect quiet.   
A loose note hanged in the house while the walls felt more renewed, throbbing with life. The small noise fluttered once again in the house with an approaching glee. It didn't sound good.   
“It's ghost!” Paisley shouted.   
“What? I hope you don't mean that!” the Doctor said.   
“Maybe it's a good ghost coming to help us?”  
Adair said, “That sounds crazier than your usual theories.”  
“You don't know that. There's friendly ghosts and not-so-friendly ones”  
“It's the not-so-friendly ones I want to avoid,” Adair said.   
“Another piece of the puzzle emerges,” the Doctor said. “How long have this been going on?”  
“It's a ghost! It's going to take us all to his special place down there!” Paisley shouted. “We'll be his next victims!”  
“Shut it!” Irisa said. “I told you to shut it!”  
The Doctor made a circle in the room before standing next to Adair who was up on his feet. She lifted her hand to him as she turned to the others like a professor teaching another class.   
“Listen to me, listen,” the Doctor said. “There's no old man or ghost coming to get your souls, or anything like that. I need you to stay calm, not wander off. Can you do that for me?”

Chapter twenty   
The others nodded as they made the solemn pact not to shuffle around the house like explores in dangerous caves. It could go dark while making lose themselves in the giant, stifling house of distorted rooms, and odd places straight out of Frank Lloyd Wright's imagination.   
“Tell me how you got here in detail,” the Doctor asked.   
The three young people looked at each other like they expected one or the other to speak first, but they all seemed to pestered by being prey in this house. Would the house be hungry enough to take them if they lingered long enough here? I didn't add anything to the conversation either.   
It would be a waiting game about who was going to confess first. Turned out the least likely was brave enough to make the move. Paisley grabbed the bag from the floor and stood on the floor in an upright stance.   
Now the lucid glow from the hallway candles outlined his features. His eyes looked serious as he bit back his lips in a taunt mood. I thought he had an odd smell to him that made me think of old glue.   
“I remember a bright flash when we walked into this house,” Paisley said.   
“We don't even know what it was,” Adair said. “We were at the old house in Hastings and now we ended up in here. It felt like we passed through... through... I don't know.”  
“Maybe we're in some sort of purgatory,” Irisa said.   
“No, no, it's like some mirror door,” Paisley said. “You know, which leads somewhere evil. Just like that Star Trek episode Mirror, Mirror.”  
“Thank you for that fascinating thought,” the Doctor said to Paisley while she rolled her eyes. She made emphasis on the word “fascinating” as if she was trying to mock him for Trek love.   
Now she was going to have to babysit these people. It was an idea that made her shudder. Could she ever imagine it? Her cuddling a bunch of kids while the rest of the universe hanged in threads?   
Her thoughts roamed just as the strange patch of land with the house on it roamed the vortex of space.   
The Doctor thought about putting a cap on the number of people traveling with her. Though she'll stick to just one or two companions right. That's all she could take. The Doctor hated the idea of a group party. So did I.   
The applauding boom of the clock sounded more like a staggered gasp, trying to reach the next few minutes without making so much clamor. The wail of the hammer threatened to strike the bell while the flattened echo did not sound anything like a chime. This clock, this house, was stuck.   
It was time for the house to introduce itself. 

Chapter twenty-one  
The Doctor stepped out from the guest room, bounded with confidence, while she stood defiantly in the hall. Her eyes caught sight of the wasted walls seeping with the candlelight glitter that washed over the plaster. The house sounded like it had something in its throat, maybe choking.   
Now the rich splendor of the floors stretched on like a lengthy feast of wood, and the far end of the hallways beckoned. TJ rubbed his eyes to help stammer the effects. The hallways seemed to stir.   
“All right,” the Doctor said. “We got enough people to split up safely into two groups. No one will be by themselves. I'll take pudgy with me to the east side of the house.”  
“Hey!” Paisley whined.  
“And the rest of you take the west side,” the Doctor added.   
“Agreed,” TJ said.   
“How come I got to go with the China man?” Adair said. He turned to the Doctor: “You seem to be the one who knows what's going on here.”  
“That archer saved my life a number of times. I trust him,” the Doctor vouched.   
“Well, I'm in your debt many times over,” TJ said. “I say it's a fair tie.”  
“What kind of name is TJ anyway?” Adair sneered.   
“It's a nickname,” TJ shot back.  
“Let's stop quarreling with each other,” the Doctor said. “It's a waste of time.”  
“This place feels broken,” Irisa said. “I don't like it.”  
“None of us do,” Adair said. “Except maybe Paisley here.”  
“Shut up,” Paisley sneered.   
“Awesome. I knew we can rely on you for being a motor mouth. Especially when you're trying to frighten little girls.”  
“I'm not so little,” Irisa aid.   
The Doctor stepped into the rioting group that was exchanging unnecessary remarks. She lifted her hands to halt the conversation to a veering stop, her face tightened into an authoritative glance.   
“We'll meet in one hour's time,” the Doctor said.   
“I think I can set up my cell phone for an alarm to set off,” Adair said.   
“That's good,” the Doctor said with clenching lips.   
“I can do the same,” Paisley added.   
“You see how easy it is to be working together?” the Doctor said. “And yet separately. Remember we'll come back here in one's hour. If you see anything strange, don't engage it. Do something else instead. Here's my favorite word: Run.”

Chapter twenty-two  
No longer overhearing anything, I followed the Doctor whipped around to go down the corridor where the house stood like neglected blocks, heavy shadows slipping on the walls like chocolate syrups on ice cream.   
I admired her confidence. She looked like she could take the darkness on her own. Her footsteps led the party hunt as they would soon break off at the next intersection. I would not want her for an enemy.   
May be too late for that.   
She took the eastern corridor now, taking a fine right with a stampede of footsteps. Her heels clicked with darting noises, departing in haste. The Doctor turned the corner where she saw what looked like a screaming statue standing in its place.   
Its ghoulish teeth, and outstretched hands, was a life-like cry of horror. The gallant eyes, and the ache of a growling mouth, made the Doctor jump back. Its angel-like face rippled with an oasis of maddening fear.   
She made a mute gasp while she saw the statue standing near the corner, making her think of something else from the past. She was nearly reeling on her high heels, regaining her composure.  
“Blast these statues,” the Doctor complained.   
“What's wrong?” TJ said.   
“Nothing,” the Doctor said. “It's just something that looked familiar, but the features are all wrong.”  
“All right, I think we ought to go,” TJ said.   
The Doctor took her newfound friend along, though the younger boy looked like he was still upset at her sudden jab at his being a little chubby. Right now, he was tongue-tied while storming through the corridor with this woman stirring with fused anger, her heels slapping against the fortress of wood that clambered before her.   
Though Paisley grew a little worrisome as he kept in tow, staying close to the Doctor's presence. She was the hunter while the house was being hunted. The woman swept through the next hall while her clothes cluttered around her lovely figure, hips swaying with a catastrophic beauty.   
“What about the door that never opens?” Paisley piped.   
“What? There's no such thing as a locked door,” the Doctor continued.   
“There is one.”  
“Show me where.”

Chapter twenty-three   
The more one looked in the house, the more the place reserved itself from intruding glances. Now the teeming shadows became more elusive, a padded darkness that soothed the building like good company.   
I became a reluctant guide for those prodding and poking around, and the entire house became a game for those who ventured to explore through different doors and rooms. I found this dilly-dallying confusing.   
I found some rooms filled with disproportionate measures. The unsettling walls cherished the wholesale breeding of greater darkness. Sometimes I did not care for the painting on the walls. Or the wainscoting. It became a battlefield for light and dark when you stepped further into the house. There were far too many signs of old age here.   
“Can you show me where this locked door is?” the Doctor said.   
“I don't like that room,” Paisley said. “Neither should you.”  
The hallways was like a sprawling tunnel now which belched with more flattened shadows, and the idle house became quiet, dismal. Sometime I got a bad feeling about that room too. I felt sickness in it.   
The row of wooden doors glared back at the Doctor and Paisley, many doors with more choices. The shuffling of doors all looked the same with the exception of some blotches of age settling into the wood. So many chipped edged in this place as if people scratched at the walls with a helpless shout. The Doctor put it all out of her mind. There was no time for being frightened of silly fears.   
The Doctor flanked the walls as she brushed her fingers along the gentle woodwork. She didn't attend to every detail, but she paid attention to the bigger picture.   
Why was there so many doors? This place was getting to be more like a maze. Her eyes studied the house around her while she hummed to herself with a pleasing note. She was singing a little something that sounded like a Beatles, perhaps “She's Leaving Home.” I knew that song too. She's. Leaving. Home. Bye. Bye. How could I know that?   
Lifting her hand to the first door, she shook off any delicate signs of shame. She wouldn't allow for her emotions to get the better of her. She was going to make sure it stayed that way. It was just the house. Though Paisley grew uneasy down this corridor. She turned to him while her hair brushed her delightful features. She resembled an angle of destruction or a devil of do-care.   
“Hmm, it feels like time is frozen for this house. The candles never burn out, and there's a distinct cold air that do not change,” the Doctor said.   
“Yeah, it's been like that for while,” Paisley said.   
“You've done your research on this house?”  
“Oh yeah, tons of it,” Paisley said. “I'm something of a history buff.”  
“Why is 11:55 so important? Well?”  
“11:55 p.m.” Paisley reported. “That's when the house died.”  
“That's the same time you see on all the clocks in the house. Oh, that isn't good,” the Doctor said.   
“What? You think the house is going to blow up if the clocks work?”  
“I wouldn't say that. Though there are some patterns I'm seeing here.”  
“Not. Liking. This. Place.”  
The Doctor could see the floor beneath here gave a polished glare for wood, and the daunting age of the house made her think of crumbling buildings or declining civilizations. When the Doctor checked the next room, she looked into it like an observer at a museum. 

Chapter twenty-four  
This room was a study complete with a chair, desk and a couple of bookshelves bellowing with an infernal passing of years. The gutted air seemed colder here while the stitches of time wrapped around this library room.   
It was true the books offered a wealth of reading material, but she didn't have the time to go through them. It could be so easy to get lost in books. Might be easier to get lost in this house.   
She turned to see Paisley grew preoccupied with his thoughts, his face turning as he got jumped with bungled nerves. He started to look like a boy going on his first date. Or maybe he was overwhelmed by the idea of hanging around with an older woman.   
Paisley carried a notebook, a laptop and a huge bag that slouched over his shoulder. Inside was probably an assortment of junk food that raided his body with a lot of sugar hikes. Still his ultimate goal was to find more mysteries like the misguided child he was. Paisley should go home. He really, really should be going home. Companion material?   
She thought with a resounding “NO.” She wouldn't even put him on the top ten or twenty, but he wasn't so bad either. He did carry one of those old-school cameras that spat out pictures. That was smart.   
He's got a shoulder strap holding the camera up, and the twinkle in his sad eyes told her that he was between the notion of exploring more or cowering like a trapped animal. He glared at the room she stood next to.  
“Is this the room?” the Doctor said.   
“Yeah, but I wouldn't go in there,” Paisley said.   
“Why not? What's stopping you?”  
“The door is locked for a reason.”  
No one should like this room. I did not even know what was waiting up there. Sometimes I would just slip away into the comfort zone without looking. Without searching.   
The young boy was right when the Doctor checked through the doorway, stepping between the crack of the door to find the wooden frame of the smaller door, looking more like a priest hole, sitting there with a dare.   
Oh, what I lacked in humor it made up in fear. 

Chapter twenty-five  
In the cluttered halls which forked through the house, like a spillage of dead ends, this place abandoned all sense. The small knot of explorers moved into a deeper part of the house with guarded caution.   
Their footsteps swept across the floor with intruding beats. Did this house become a garden of wood and glass and darkness? They moved through the corridors on first floor.   
TJ took the lead now as he held the bow in his cradled hands, long and swift sways, locking into a battle stance as he walked. The others, knitted together like almost twins, followed him closely at the back of his heels.   
Here the walls closed in with an unfriendly stir while the passages continued to crawl through the house like an unread map. More candles flickered in the growing blotches of the dark, but they were becoming half-hearted glows. The cluttered forms of passer-bys strolled down the hall like lost tourists.   
“Where did you get that stupid shirt?” Adair said to his cousin.  
“I got it from my boyfriend. He's older, and got lots of money,” Irisa said.   
“Who? The boyfriend we never see? The non-existent one?”  
“Why don't you believe me?”  
“I think you got a pretty good imagination. You should be a writer,” Adair snapped back.  
“He gave it to me for Easter.”  
“I think aunt Joan bought it for you.”  
Irisa did wear a dark concert shirt which had a band's portrait slapped on it in a cheap way. It was one of those mass-produced cop-outs people wore at the very last minute. The name of the group was the Clandestine Thugs with a rather pretty woman doing lead vocals in gothic mode.  
“That's what you do, isn't it?” Irisa muttered. “If it's something you don't understand or get, you throw your anger at others.”  
“Not true.”  
“Is too.”  
“Sometimes I take care of you like you're my own sister. I got to keep firm. It's not always fun.”  
“Too bad.”  
“Besides I thought Paisley was your boyfriend.”  
“Ewwww. No way. That's gross!”  
“I discovered the truth!”  
TJ turned back to the others and muttered, “Why would you be making up boyfriends or mocking others who don't have a loved one? Things like love can be a serious business.”  
“How would you know?” Irisa whispered.   
“Everyone's fallen in love at least once in their lives.”  
Being only a few steps ahead didn't help any at all, and his eyes gathered with a fearless glance. He was like a warrior in stealth while he looked at the trailing hallway before him.   
I listened to them go down he next hall in the west wing stretching further into the cold wilderness of shadows. It was, perhaps, where darkness waited. No moonlight, or stars, could ever peg this part of the house.   
Not even I liked this place.  
Something was coming. I was letting them in. 

Chapter twenty-six   
Oh yes, the flimsy wooden space beckoned to her from across the study room. It sat behind the desk and chair like an off-hand chance to possible freedom from this dark place. The hallow of the room, like a lifting praise in shadows, crept around that tiny door leading upwards.   
Now the heavy-laden books sat on the shelves like bad grins. Their covers were etched with scratches and littered blotches of disuse. So the rest of the room felt neglected. Especially the locked door. Why should no one want to use that door for so long?   
The Doctor blew out a brief chuckle, “Don't tell me you're afraid of a little door like that?”   
“You're provoking this house,” Paisley. “Tell me if I'm wrong.”  
“Nonsense,” the Doctor replied. “You're suggesting that the house is alive. And it's not.”  
“I have an awful feeling about this place. It seems like it wants to choke you.”  
“We're nearly there,” the Doctor tried to persuasive. “Why stop halfway there? It would defeat the purpose of coming here.”  
“I can feel the door staring back at me.”  
“What did I tell you about ghosts?”  
“There's no such thing as ghosts,” Paisley said with slumped shoulders.   
“Precisely. They're just unexplained things, and this is what the house is: not yet explained.”  
“Yes, ma'am.”  
“I'll find the answers for you,” the Doctor said.   
“All right,” the boy became disfranchised.   
“Do you believe in Santa Claus? The Easter Bunny? How about the Mad Hatter who is too busy making bad English tea? What of the Tooth Fairy?”  
“No.”  
“Then... you have nothing to be afraid of.”

Chapter twenty-seven  
So I observed the Doctor being the first one to step into the study room like someone who would part the ocean with a mere sway of her approaching figure.   
In this instance, I heard the darkness in the room parted in a whimper. It didn't stop her. I found her to be more interesting than before. She walked past the crude furnishings and the brazen books sitting on the wooden shelves.   
She made sure the door was opened wide enough to allow enough candlelight to spill into the dim, fixed quarters.   
No windows here. I didn't like this part. Nothing that could give you an idea of the passing of day or time. This place made me feel lost.   
It was a very quiet room meant to cut off all the commotion while someone worked at the desk. It was one way to defeat society. By finding myself a corner where I could hole in.   
And the door.   
Just the door.   
The room felt more like a coffin to Paisley who followed inside.   
When the Doctor found herself in the middle of the room, she searched the room with probing eyes. Her clothes hanged on her with a Victorian longings while she also wore modern sensibilities beneath.  
She was like a figure of many contrasts. Such different fashions was probably the least of her worries. Blessed with some good looks, she was not conventionally pretty. Her longish features, and subtle flaws, was like a housing project. There could be always improvements. Maybe a little make-up could do the trick? The Doctor snapped out of the female wiles as she concentrated on the room.  
I knew this place. I knew this place very well.   
The locked door opened by itself across the room as if it noticed a weakness in the Doctor. The weighted door, like a crack in the eggshell, grew bigger into a thunderously groan. Now the smallish door widened into a dawning abyss waiting for her.   
Now it was starving with light, boating like a streak of meanness tempting her to come closer. I watched the darkness fall into the charcoal pit that spilled into a flight of stairs going further upwards.   
It was a putrid stairway with flaws. I should count the stairs. How many stairs were there? The smothered shadows hanged like seeping cobwebs making the walls thick with the entertainment of dark souls writing, snarling in the depths of the stairs.   
Now the hallway with the stairs sat with a stillness wanting to engulf the intruders. It spiraled into a vortex of alarming steps going up and up as if you're walking on the back of a long snake. The Doctor was thrilled by the idea. I wasn't.   
“I told you that there's something here,” Paisley whined.   
The Doctor said, “Something to do with the frame of the door,” the Doctor said. “The added increase of my footstep dislodged the door from the hinges. It's very easy to explain. Could be a number of potholes beneath the house that made the door open like that. You're coming with me?”  
“I'm not going up there,” Paisley said.   
“Fine. I'm leaving you here on your own. I'm going or without you. I don't need extra baggage with me.”  
“I'm sorry, Doctor. I get a feeling that I get to close to the door that I can feel something scratching at the back of my head.”  
“Yes, I feel it too. Just ignore it and clear your thoughts.”  
“I can't do that. It's too much. The scratching feels like a giant ocean now.”  
The Doctor rummaged through her pockets as her fingers toiled between the jumbled junk inside. She went through a searching fit, her gentle hands digging deeper into her pockets with a scathing impatience.   
She plowed through with rage, hoping to find what she was looking for. No, not that. Not that either. She lifted something out from the lower left hand pocket of her coat, and saw it was the paper bag filled with the vanilla covered pretzels she liked. I wouldn't mind a bite of those.   
No doubt they would be broken or crushed by now from all the running around she did. She'll remind herself to get some more from an English shop somewhere.   
Her hand dived down one more time before fishing out a ball of red yard, holding it in her hand like a fortune teller holding a witch's orb. The Doctor held it in place on her hand while she pulled the small string from it, giving it another tug to let it unravel.   
The Doctor said, “Hold on this ball of string no matter what. It's your lifeline. And mine. It'll give me a chance tell me you're still all right. Is that satisfactory?”  
“Yes,” Paisley said.  
“And you call yourself a scientist. Not much of a soldier either. I'll come back when I'm done looking.”  
“Don't take too long.”  
“No, I won't,” the Doctor snapped.   
The Doctor tired the string around her wrist, keeping it on a steady line connecting from point A to point B. She moved along the study room before slipping into the smaller doorway, lowering her head so she wouldn't hit it. The Doctor followed up the steps before her, feeling the wobbled stairs under her penetrating feet.   
She kept moving forward like Alice in Wonderland, finding her way through the errands of darkness that closed around her. And yet, despite everything, the Doctor remained unafraid. Crouching slightly, she moved in small steps.   
I expected no less. 

Chapter twenty-eight   
Far too deep, far too cloistered. The one called TJ fixed his hands around the bow tighter, preparing himself for an unlikely battle. He felt the fixed tension gripping the house like god-fearing hands, wrapping around with a gloating snicker again. I keep following them in the shadows.   
The others' voices carried like a word raid. Bludgeoning bits of conversation, hammering with insults and being loud, poured behind TJ as he listened to every clip of dialogue.   
Their tired quips rose out of argument while Irisa chipped at her cousin like he was an iceberg melting away by her rising voice. All the while TJ turned his head slightly, his hands lowering the bow in a reluctant pose.   
“Do you mind?” TJ said. “Are you trying to attract the whole universe?”  
“Yeah? What of it?” Adair said.   
“Can't you keep it down?”  
“It wasn't intentional,” Irisa added. “I feel a little iffy here. So I have to make a little noise.”  
“I was just helping along,” Adair added. “This place gets to me.”  
“Whatever you do, don't let it,” TJ said. “I can almost feel its influence, but can ignore it.”  
“You too? You can feel the air around you?” Irisa said. “It's like something is clawing at the back of my head.”  
TJ continued, “The Doctor told me to believe in facts, not idle rumors. There's nothing grounded in superstitions. That's what I learn from her.”  
“Who is she?” Irisa said. “Is she like your teacher? Or something else?”  
“What? No,” TJ said. “I see her as a traveling partner. Nothing more.”  
“I've been reading a lot of stuff about how teachers and students are a little more than they let on. It's been happening more often. Especially with women teachers.”  
“Well, it's not like that,” TJ snapped.  
“Don't you feel unsafe around her?”  
“She's a healer. She helps people.”  
“I think she uses people as shields. Don't you think she's using us as a distraction while she's getting away?”  
I watched TJ stop in his tracks and turn around and glared at the young black girl who stood rigid in her steps. She stopped like she was trapped in a tractor beam of his stare. Was it something she said? TJ looked like he was going to rip someone's vocal chords out, starting with hers.   
“That's something the Doctor would never do,” TJ said. “She's not like that.”  
“You don't know her that well, do you? Sure, you travel with you for a while, but do you really know her? She'd dropkick the universe just to get away from us, yeah?”  
“I'm not going to argue with you,” TJ said.   
“Starting to get worried about Paisley myself,” Irisa said.   
“Me too,” Adair added.   
“I'm going to check the next room,” TJ said.   
“The Doctor told us not to split up anymore than we have,” Adair pointed out.   
“This is not splitting up. I'm going into the next room to scout around while you wait right here. It's only the kitchen I'm going in.”  
“And probably the scariest room in the whole house.”  
“What's that?”  
“The cellar. Isn't the cellar usually found next to the kitchen?”  
“Not always,” Irisa said.   
TJ shrugged them off like a cat bored of the conversation, slinking off to the other room on first floor. If the coast was clear, and everything was okay, he was going to signal them. Slowly moving his weight, he skirted along with light-footed steps while carrying the bow in his hand. 

Chapter twenty-nine  
When reached about midway through the spiraling steps, the Doctor tugged the string. In return, she felt a pull knowing that the pudgy boy below was fine at the other end of the line.   
Her footsteps made a clatter while her hand held the wooden railing that followed in circles. So much work went into the making of this house like it was a dark secret in waiting. Now the gutted shadows, like a flooding presence, hanged with leaching mercy while the narrow space gripped with measured walls. Now the giant clutch of darkness toiled with a charcoal blister that clung to the old walls.   
Her heels clicked against the wooden steps like sharp pokes, her breathing grew heavy as she reached higher on the steps. Her thoughts were fleeting into a storm of methodical research in her own head.   
How long ago was it since she was in a house like this? These haunted houses were always the same, and one word came to her every time: disappointment.   
Now a new batched of steps welcomed her while she chugged along her fingers felt the string still tied to her. Now it seemed the house grew charitable to her, welcome her with a dark universe upstairs. She could lose herself in the foliage of stairways, but she wasn't going to let that happen. The Doctor kept climbing the stairs, leaving behind everything behind her except common sense and logic.   
The bottom of the shadows dropped into a booming abyss where the stairs led back to the study room. Though the lingering steps seemed to go on forever like some tunnel-like effect. Was there no escape from this house? How did it open and shut the doors at its whims?   
What about poor Paisley? The Doctor saw the red string still tugging at her hand, and she moved on with the swiftness of an explorer searching the mountains. There was never an end to her curiosity. He eyes caught a glitter just above.   
What was that?   
She felt a wall of death closing around her, and the old room offered white sheets that were smoothed lovingly over the oblong shape of pampered cushions.   
There was nothing except for the outline my own face traced in the the TV set, and the soaking religion of death clawed around her with a fueling delight. 

Part Three   
Chapter thirty   
I was certain the Doctor would like this surprise. So would you. I prepared a long time for this.   
There sat an old TV set which leaned against the far side of the room. It was like a recluse taking up space. Now the TV set flickered with an impossible electrical pulse when the Doctor stepped into the room.   
She thought this place didn't have any electricity. So why was the TV giving a hum?   
Worse, the Doctor followed the plug that snaked from the TV set, a thick, black cord. And yet, reaching the end of the cord, the Doctor found the TV set wasn't even plugged in. Her hands lifted the cord under her detecting eyes.   
This was the neat trick.   
I could talk to the Doctor. Through the TV set.   
Now the Doctor could see the gleaming stir of a picture taking shape and hold on the TV screen. The menacing stare penetrated all the way from hell itself, and the fires of life poured into the TV set with demonic power.   
She saw me with a receding hairline that crawled back to the back of my magnificently bald head. My hair hanged on the nape of his neck with a bombastic thickness. I looked like a living tomb grinning.   
It was me.   
“Ah, we have yet another soul winding up in here,” I said. “Are you looking for truth?”  
“I hope so,” the Doctor said.   
“And what a great soul you have. So old. So divine.”  
The Doctor said, “I'm sure that's all very interesting, but what are you doing here in this house?”   
“I'm a collector. I collect souls.”  
“That's not possible. Everything has a beginning, middle and ending.”  
“Souls are the building blocks of life. They are the doorway to existence.”  
“If you believe in such things. That is something fanatics rave about because of their fear of death. There is no afterlife.”  
“It true,” I said.   
“You're the house itself. You're a living house,” the Doctor said. “I'm talking to an actual house that is a thinking, breathing and speaking thing?”  
“Yes.”  
“I'm the very proof of life after death,” I said.   
“You're just a electrical cloud skulking about in an old house,” the Doctor replied.  
“Why do you not feel the purity of my soul and find out for yourself?” I said to her.  
I provoked her a little. It was morbid, fun, but simple to do. The Doctor felt a grasp of darkness playing against her, like a beast nudging itself into her legs, and there was a toiling mischief that sank into the room with her.   
With a slight tug, the Doctor pulled on the string that was still knotted around her fingers. What was this? Maybe the boy Paisley was still guarding the door below?   
I wondered if he was still waiting for her at the other end like a true loyalist. Why did so many people stay dedicated to her even though she promised them nothing. Humans could be so delicate at times.   
“Did you notice the stairway you have crossed?” I said through the TV set. “So many of the stairways. All looking the same?”  
“Were you reading my mind?” the Doctor said.   
“Those stairways are leading up to heaven itself. Are you ready to die in your own time? Or did you die many times before? Yes, that's it.”  
“I do have that ability.”  
“Such things are real. Souls.”  
“I'm not going to talk about this anymore. It would be foolish to talk to a voice from beyond the grave.”  
“You are surprisingly closed-minded to the idea.”  
“I prefer facts,” the Doctor said.   
“I died. I died some time ago. Now I'm here.”  
“I don't believe you.”  
“You must be getting tired of life itself. Your soul is old, exhausted.”  
“On the contrary, I have never been more vigorous.”  
The room shifted while the ghoulish figure of me shuffled with a flicker on the TV set. I was getting bored in the TV screen that spoke of glitter. It was all the trappings of an old man still clinging to life.   
I didn't care for it.   
The Doctor noticed the many candles sitting alongside the small bay window, giving off a rage of light despite the frozen night. The cold in the room grew festive to the Doctor who gripped her coat with her hands, and she searched the room for answers.   
As she stood in a polite stance while her soft, her gentle figure grew into a terrace of pretty curves. Standing on the edge of the cluttered brightness, the Doctor felt something in the room in her mind. It set off mental alarms for her.   
The Doctor said. “The candles. All parts of a power source.”  
“Perhaps. Someone put the candles there for my last moments. She was one of my first souls I received. I remember those last words she spoke to me.”  
“I don't believe you're anything other than something clinging on to this house like a parasite,” the Doctor said.   
That TV set flickered with renewed life, and the static fluxed while more images poured across the cold stream of the TV landscape. I could feel myself so cramped in this TV. In this house.   
I grew more angry at her choice words. 

Chapter thirty-one   
With a gallant approach, a knight without the shining armor, TJ crept into the kitchen while fighting the creaks beneath his feet. While he lifted the bow defensively in his hands, he could hear the other two chatting slightly in the hallway. It didn't make him happy.  
He listened to them arguing quietly over the girl's so-called boyfriend, and Adair accused her of making up the whole thing. It might have been cute, maybe innocent, but it was annoying right now. TJ knew the Doctor would have a field day around those people.  
TJ couldn't see well in the kitchen space that made him feel like he was walking through a stockyard. So much junk sitting around like neglected piles, though he noticed there was no flies buzzing around.   
His stomach growled a little, though he fought the urge to look into the fridge. The Doctor always told him: two meals a day was enough.  
Now the aching darkness chocked off the walls with a pitiful scrawl. He could see the lowly oil-like slur dripping over the dining table and checkered floor. TJ had seen pictures of old houses from the nineteen-fifties, and this nostalgic kitchen reminded him of such happy moments always disguised in terrifying notes. There was a sickness blending into the kitchen.   
Everything seemed lost in the passages of silk nothingness while he skirted past the dining table. He lifted the one arrow to the bow string while he searched through the kitchen space bathed in sleep.   
He saw the struggling walls greeting him like a knowing thing. Oh yes, it kept playing with his thoughts.   
The wainscoting peeled off like flicks of paper and the thrust of dog-eared plaster pulled back to hide another layer of nothing. It was like glancing into a bottomless abyss. TJ felt a gasp slip from his lips as he probed his hand inside the alarming abyss that welcomed his violation.   
Now he put his entire outstretched arm into the sinking wall like he was sticking his hand into an ocean. He felt neither hot or cold here, not the blackness that was cruel to him. The darkness lapped at him like a sea of sin. Something was getting into his head.   
As he pulled his left arm out, still intact, he found he was covered with blood allover, the soaking sleeve bloated with the red scare. His fingers and arm also covered with the redness of seeping blood. He could feel the chill of death waiting for him. I knew he would come.   
I spoke to him: “How many people did you kill in the name of your emperor?”  
“Who are you?” TJ said.   
“It does not matter. I'm nobody. I'm in the middle of talking to your Doctor. She is your Doctor, isn't she? I think the Doctor would be interested in knowing how many lives you took in that day of war. The Battle of Scorosos.”  
“I denounced that act of war,” TJ said.   
“A hundred lives, a thousand? How merciless she was.”  
“She did want I had to do,” TJ sneered. “It doesn't mean she had to like it.”  
“The countless deaths shouted her name on their bleeding tongues.”  
“She's a changed person now,” TJ said. “And that was long in the past. The Battle of Scorosos is just a battle scar for her.”  
“Chobani, wasn't it? The bridges of Chobani. Is that what is bothering her? The fires of Broken Bones.”   
“Stop trying to get into her head!”  
“SCOROSOS!”  
“NO!”  
“The rage of war. It's filling her with blood lust. Isn't that why the Doctor took you under her wing? She needed help. She needed a soldier. You have something in common with you. You're both soldiers.”  
“Shut up! You're not real!”  
“What is real? What is her name? No one knows. Not even the universe knows her name.”  
“She has nothing to do with the Battle of Scorosos anymore!”  
He wouldn't talk to me now. TJ made enough of a debacle to catch the attention of others, and they stepped into the kitchen space that seemed far too small for their liking.   
I knew I angered him. And the others. They did have concern hanging in their faces as they toiled around the kneeling archer on the floor. Irisa looked around to see if there was anything else in the room.  
Adair grabbed TJ by his shoulder as he helped him to his feet. When TJ forced himself to stand, without falter, he remained on his feet.   
When he swiveled his head, he didn't hear my voice anymore as the coldness throbbed across the dining table. 

Chapter thirty-two  
Something pulled the others here, and for the moment TJ wondered if they were ALL pulled to this house to face old emotions. He could have sworn he heard the house speaking to him in riddles.   
You could never notice some things. They're always just outside the corner of your eye. There! Could you see it lingered in the far corner? Or was it just a part of your imagination?  
“I'm alright,” TJ said. “Just ghosts from the past.”  
“Feels like the house is becoming alive, isn't it?” Irisa said.  
“Thought you didn't go for that stuff,” Adair said.   
“I do now.”  
“You and Paisley. Two peas in a pod.”  
“Don't tell me you don't believe in any of it,” Irisa snapped.   
“Well...”  
A flicker from a match stopped the ragged conversation from going on. First the scratching sound of ignition caught their attention while the yellow blaze roared from TJ's fingertips as his thumb flicked the tip.   
With the glowing brightness glossing across the kitchen, TJ stood with the match in his hand. His head turned to the far side of the kitchen where the silence dampened the mood.   
Now the house was making a ruse to get them to explore the rest of this place in a shared task. With a sudden crack, breaking with creaking groan, the cellar door yawned open at a short distance.   
That seeping anticipation grew while the door inched wider like a desperate mouth roaring. Did you see that? I did that.   
The threads of the door revealed the back of the cellar where the stairs dropped into the further darkness. Its aghast groans turned into a futile wheeze as the door brushed open with a welcome gaze. The darkness cramped the doorway with a dead presence.   
Swiping the match before it burned his fingers, TJ threw down the stub before reaching for another one. Both Adair and Irisa turned on their flashlights into the doorway while the piercing stabs of brightness punched through the living flesh of the dark. It didn't look nice down there.   
“Princess?” TJ said when he turned to the door.   
“What are you talking about?” Irisa said. “I didn't hear anything.”  
“It's her. I can hear Yuki finally.”  
“There's nothing, man. It's just the door.”  
TJ shuffled forward like a boy drunk on love, his feet pressing against the wooden board like he was going to float towards the sounds of the soothing woman in the silk dress begging him to approach. She was lingering in the quiet darkness. He heard the poetry of her voice, and the sweetness of Japanese heaven. No one could sound as regal as Yuki did. She was wonderful.  
Did she finally forgive him while he proved himself of being capable of her love? Would she switch riches for rags? Now he could not think of anything else on his mind as he followed the tender bliss of her soulful voice, making those distant days much shorter to him now. Ever so commanding, calling like angels, he heard hear her in his head.   
“I'll help you,” TJ muttered.   
His stumbles drew him closer to the cellar doorway, reaching out like a man who was desperate to hold someone. The others followed him with hopes of recouping him from the lost messages he seemed to be hearing.   
It was a misguided rescue, a mad dash. Irisa eased her hand on his shoulders as she stepped down the staircase with her cousin. She was trying to sooth TJ at the height of corruption crowding the basement.   
“Maybe we shouldn't go down there,” Irisa said.   
Her face turned to see the abyss bellowing below, and she stuck her flashlight into the breathing, mouthing doorway of the dark. The depths felt like a malleable presence that rippled like a large lake. She waded the flashlight across to watch the sea of nothingness before her.   
It was only a dungeon-like cellar that sank deeper, and further, into the dread that spilled down the steps. Something was breathing down in the cellar. Irisa tried to pull at TJ's shirt, her fingers clutching at him as she tried to get back into the kitchen. And away from this cellar.   
“There's nothing, hon,” Irisa said. “I don't hear or see anything.”  
“Leave me alone,” TJ said. “It's her at last.”  
“Who?”  
“My beloved.”  
“I don't know who you're talking about.”  
Adair tried shaking the flashlight in his hand as its steady beam peered into the blackness as well, and the steps lowered into the swamped blackness that stirred like hell's own engines. The light began to flicker.  
It was like a thick soup down there, and it was impossible to see anything. Only the downward trend fitted into the crevice-like split, a wide gap of utter nonsense. Only the radiant beams of flashlights twisted into the dark with a dying shout.   
Now TJ wasn't any help at all, slumped in his own idle passage. He was like a lovesick boy holding on to that last shred of dream he lost so long ago. TJ sat on the stairs while his legs gave out from under him. There was very little strength left in him as he felt the emotional wrecking ball hit him.   
“I think we need to get out of here,” Adair said.   
“Yeah, I agree with you for once,” Irisa said. 

Chapter thirty-three   
Was the house floating in some abyss in space? Or was it just passing through yet another cold spot? The candles flickered with a hungry glow while the demands of brightness faltered in grisly ruins of these chambers.   
The Doctor watched through the candles as she lifted the small picture from the shrine itself. She didn't care if she was showing disrespect for intruding on the candlelit room, her thoughts pressing with little kindness.   
It was my room. This was the room I died in. And something happened in this place. I became one with the house. And the house became one with me. It was the oddest thing.  
Humans could be such sentimental creatures. She mulled over the problems while her jutting figure grew foreboding against the sterile nakedness of the room. The Doctor was like the wisdom of the gods while her thoughts ran through her head.  
She refused to believe the house was part of some supernatural world. Her life, or lives, were based on romantic side of science, nothing else. She subscribed to facts before she would even dip her thoughts in the notion of ghosts.   
Some might think it's closed-minded, but she preferred details and facts to be measured in tests. Not relying on some muddled belief in ghosts, goblins or haunts.   
Not here. Not now.   
“So you go around taking the so-called souls, er, life energy, for your own? That's why the candles are lit all the time. They're part of your life force,” the Doctor said. “You feed on others.”  
“I lived a long life on earth,” I said. “But I never wanted to die. I found a way not to.”  
“You're stealing energies from others! You're nothing but a blood-sucking leech!” the Doctor said.   
“I resent your words.”  
“A thief taking the guise of a house. You're a fraud!”  
“Take care with your words, Doctor.”  
“So you allow your massive ego to deep devouring others so you can engorge yourself like fat oaf at a dinner meal. You feast on the universe.”  
“Ah, poetic words, my dear. And such a lonely, beautiful universe enriched by so many souls for the taking,” I said.   
“You're nothing , NOTHING but a petty murderer!” the Doctor said angrily.  
Her face tightened into fury, eyes fluttering, her lips curling, while the cosmic chill of her eyes hardened with a harrowing slaying, so savage.   
She pulled at the string that's tied to her wrist, seeing that it's still attached despite all the moving around. It was a constant reminder of a scared, little boy at the end of the string. Yet her features radiated inward like a maddening storm waiting to burst like a thousand cracks in the sky. She looked like a terrifying wraith.  
Her hand clutched into knots as she felt the rambling shadows wailing around her. The cold spoilage of horror washed over the room while the Doctor felt something sluggish touching her with a festive prowl. She turned to me.   
“Somehow your own life energy got transferred into the house, and you're controlling this place. You're luring victims here including myself,” the Doctor said.  
“I might have let in other things into this house,” I said.   
“That's what desperate thugs like you do, isn't it? You thrive on others to survive to maintain your pitiful existence.”  
“Ah, but I have so many souls I need to feed on. Including the biggest one right here,” I said.   
“Do your worst.”  
“I was hoping you would say that. Fear me!”  
All of the doors in the house, in a hurricane, began to shut with a mutiny, and the rooms shared in this house the locked sensation of closing doors. The house roared with a madness that began with the Doctor.   
Behind her, with a recoiling action, I force the attic door to slam shut with a wild slippage, closing her off from everything else. I felt her breath blowing out as she turned to the fierce entrance that stayed shut.   
Many a weary traveler walked through this house, I thought to myself. Now she was utterly alone in this place. I will show her fear.   
And so was the boy.

Chapter thirty-four  
When the doorways collectively shut like a domino effect, hearing then noises cascading into loud noises, the house shuddered with a gleeful manner like a child playing rotten tricks. The rampage of closed doors could be heard with a thousand cries.   
The young boy Paisley White felt the string on his finger cut away on the ball of yard, falling to the floor with a dull slump. The attic door completely snapped with a mechanical, thrusting motion. Did the door have teeth? That was how the string was cut so clean.   
It did not good to pull the rest of the string tied to the Doctor now. His fingers rolled up the yarn to find the end of the string sheered off with haste. Paisley watched the attic door snicker at him.   
“Doctor?” Paisley said. “Are you all right?”  
Nothing.  
“Where are you, Doctor?”  
What was he doing? He should be running away, saving himself. That Doctor seemed to be pretty good at taking care of herself, but he should be worried about his own well-being.   
Was the Doctor the first victim? Did she finally “get” it in the end by being choked to death or maybe her eyes bled out? Paisley knew he was watching too many horror movies.   
He's never been a hero in his life. In school, they made fun of him for being fat, a round, gutless boy who was crippled with the most awkward thick glasses hanging on his nose. So big you could hang several Christmas decorations on it. Paisley remembered some punk named Christopher always pulling a prank on him.   
His life at school, even in college, grew demanding. He never had a girlfriend before, though he secretly liked this one black chick named Brittney who was pretty as a bed of roses. Though Paisley never had a chance with her since he was too far out of her league. Never had enough courage to ask her out. Paisley wished he did now.   
He also had a small liking for Irisa Cooper. Just a little. Though they really had nothing in common. Maybe he had a thing for liking black girls? Couldn't help it, really.  
Right now, he had other things to worry about. Paisley didn't have the courage to cross the study room which flickered with a tiny gust. The candlelights danced smaller now after the doors closed, leaving him in a mark of darkness. The life seemed to be going out of the room.  
Paisley didn't like the dying embers of the candles withering under the cleft of the door, spreading like loose change.   
The brightness grew weaker as the candles wafted with a playful, shaking sneer. It was some sort of devilish sickness coming to this place. With a shock, Paisley could see shadows jumping up and down on the walls. He told himself none of it was real.   
“Doctor, is that you?” he said with a small voice.  
Nothing.   
“Doctor?” he whined. “Don't leave me here.”  
Only the silence replied back to him with a bigger shout.   
“Fine,” he said angrily.  
His legs crouched as he rummaged through his school bag. Seeing all the clutter in the bag, toying between the items with prying hands, Paisley kept searching, fishing with driving motions as he tried to find something that could help him. Why did he have so many things in the bag?   
Maybe the cell phones didn't work well because of the electricity being fed on, but he did bring one of those old school cameras they used back in the 1970s which spat out Kodiak pictures.   
They used them in old cop or detective shows. It was cheap, portable, and simple, things that most people liked. Too bod the Kodiak company bellied up a couple years ago.  
This camera was the one with the cheap flash on the top, looking like an antique you got out of the back of an old warehouse. His hands grappled the piece as he clutched it to his chest.   
“Yeah, yeah, this should work,” Paisley said. 

Chapter thirty-five  
While I shut the cellar door in a frightful instance, the blackest gulf in the bottoms seemed to open up like a gifted secret, I offered a giant welcome that splintered the dark. It sneered, bellowed and sloshed with a dark menace pouring from all corners.   
Adair held the flashlight as it rippled in broken flickers, booming brightness pouring in a conflicting manner. He tried the door behind him only to find one thing: it was locked.   
He could feel the weight of the horror pressing down on him while the calm of the dark woke up beneath him. With a turn, and a thrust, Adair couldn't budge the knob. I wasn't going t let them leave.  
“This isn't opening!” Adair said.   
“Help him!” Irisa said as she tried to pull TJ to his feet.   
“What good is he now?”  
“He's the only one with weapons!”  
The young girl dived her hand into the quiver, searching for an amiable arrow that would be useful to them. There was nothing good inside, and only TJ knew his armory. It didn't stop her from looking. Her mother always complained about Irisa being nosy, always prying a few pounds from her at a time.  
“I wouldn't do that,” Adair said.   
“Might be something. Got to be,” Irisa said.   
“He keeps shouting about hearing something about a girl named Yuki. Do you think he's losing it?”  
“I think we'll all lose it if we don't get out of here! I don't like this place.”  
Adair dipped the flashlight as he kept it flicking into the air with an electric hiss. The house shuddered once again as he peered over the edge, seeing only the dark slur that sloshed beneath. The cellar space grew restless like a bear brewing in its giant cave.   
It wasn't even the cellar anymore, but a deep of the dark so immense that it sucked away your breath for a moment. Made you small, tiny, compared to the vastness of nothing.   
Something in the bottoms sneered as the cloud of formation, like some outlaw of night, curled upward with a sinister veil. Something pushed against the darkness with grasping hands as if the very devil himself tried to reach the surface.   
The furrowing blackness lodged against the roaming stairways which circled around and around towards the helpless knot of people. The feast of stairs kept building one new step after another, making bridges of footsteps.   
Both Adair and Irisa heard the smallish nightmare growing as the patter of footsteps moved towards them on those waking steps.   
The shadows moved deliberately with a childish play as the edges twisted in the engorged cellar space. My children. Those shadows worshiped me. Were their childish giggles merely prayers in the dark? Adair saw them before: they looked like small children, but their eyes gripped with aeons of old age.   
So many steps, so much dark. The flashlight beamed a placid glow that didn't reach far into the maddening roar of the dark.   
“What the hell is going on?” Adair said.   
“Maybe he's got an explosive on one of these arrows?” Irisa said.   
“Will you forget about that?”  
“Have you got a better idea?”  
“What? So you'll blow your hand off?'  
“Do you have match?”   
“No, Paisley got a bunch of them in his baggage of useless things.”  
“Maybe he does,” Irisa said as she reached for TJ's pocket with her hand. Her fingers stretched elusive under the striking flashlight beams.   
Her fingers gripped the one arrow with a large bulb at the end, looking like a small package of gun powder, or so she thought. It wasn't heavy, and the tiny tip was tied to the wooden cleft.   
Below the sounds of footsteps continued to brawl like an inferno rising. So many frittering shadows rumbled in the black gulfs with snippets of childish glee. Irisa looked down at the smokeless garble of hell itself.  
When she was ready to hold the arrow she picked, from the Chinese man's quiver, she grabbed the match book that was in his pocket. Now she got everything she needed, and was ready to put one and one together. Her fingers tempted the match to the tip of the arrow. 

Chapter thirty-six   
Thankfully, some photo shops in the town of Hastings still carried this kind of film—moreover in East Sussex. Especially for cameras like these that didn't get made anymore.   
Though the film itself was a bit expensive. Paisley wanted convenience, not professional photography in the palm of his hands.   
He held the camera up like it was a weapon as he snapped it off in the study room. The attic door was still closed off with the broken string cut away from sight. He was on his own.   
The boy felt something brush alongside him like a whirl of wind pushing by. It felt like poking fingers. He remembered how the kids used to that to him in middle school, and he hated that. Poke! Poke! Poke!   
Christopher led the assault on that, poking fingers. It felt different this time, more cruel. It came from the dark.   
In a frantic haste, the boy snapped a row of pictures that sprinkled the room with constant flashes. Paisley wanted to get some proof of what was in the room with him.   
Old walls crumbled with tears of shadows wrapping around him like choking hands. His face moistened with a chill. Sweat beads dabbed his forehead like a weakness.   
Flash!  
Flash! Flash!  
The young boy Paisley couldn't see anything as he tried to look into the shadows above. He could hear the roll of pictures spitting out, soon to catch the image on the piece of plastic. It was a revolutionary camera at its time: the ability to make instant photos long before digital cameras ever appeared on the shelf.   
The thread of nothingness spoke to him. He fought his fear while he juggled between standing in one cold while shrugging off the cold despair that cloaked the floors, stretching, reaching. He watched the weight of the chair falling over by itself, making a clashing sound that made him jump. He could hear loud scratchings of the desk legs making moving noises.   
Flash!  
Paisley didn't see anything as he swerved, turned, his breathing growing restless. He felt the wild sickness of fear dropping into his chest. His hand reached for the door behind him. Yes, it would be better to get out of this hallway, and away from this house. His fingers gripped the knob as he pulled on it.   
He couldn't open the door. It was locked. Paisley felt drained while a whoosh of helplessness took him.   
Paisley heard a patter of footsteps in the distance, making the rounds. Were they children or something else? They sounded like small, quick footsteps. He turned back to the door to give it another lunge, tugging at the unyielding knob. The tawdry wood, wretched in its battered slate, remained in place in the sea of darkness.   
Flash!  
Still nothing, only the room with the moved desk and the fallen chair and the library bookcase that smelled of old age. Paisley's hand held the camera in front of him while the pictures spilled out in captured moments.   
He thought he saw a blur in one of the photos on the floor. He heard the slander of footsteps storming around him, hearing the noise picking up in a restless spill as the dark picked at him.   
He could see their eyes.   
The boy screamed. 

Chapter thirty-seven   
Irisa felt a pressure on her hand that made her leap with a startle. Her face tightened as she pulled back from the intruding hand that wrapped around her fine wrist.   
“Ugh!” Irisa said.   
“I wouldn't use that arrow if I were you,” TJ said.   
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Adair said.   
“Give me the arrow,” Irisa said. “We need it.”  
“It's an explosive, ma'am. I don't think we should play with that.”  
“Neither will they,” Irisa said.   
She stood on the edge of the footsteps that stuck out like a platform from the door, and she stared down the echoing abyss that filled with approaching footsteps, ghoulish, stammering in the dark like a crazy sport.   
They moved like tiny horrors, their faces hidden like extra shadows. Only furtive glimpses could be seen of them. Those squalid, starched gems of their eyes glared back like deadened things. My little children were coming.   
“I see what you mean,” TJ said.   
Another frenzied shudder tore through me which caused the circle of stairways to crumble like a bed of breadcrumbs. Now the bridges of stairs looked more like broken pieces of a puzzle pulling apart.   
It didn't stop the approaching fiends from leaping from one island of stone steps to the next. They moved like crude monkeys swinging in a dark jungle, lifting up to the next ledger. Closer to the top.   
Now the demonic stir of darkness shifted once more as TJ could see more shadows pouring, climbing, like they were all coming from a sleeping sprout of disfranchised architecture. They were on their way to a hasty approach, moving, darting, always out of sight.   
“We won't start with blowing stuff up,” TJ said.   
“Why not? It's the only way,” Irisa said.   
“This place doesn't respond to regular things. Do you think an explosive is going to make a dent on it?”  
“I don't know.”  
“Come on, it's not a time for testosterone battle,” Irisa said.  
“We need to find another way out,” TJ said.   
“Well, we got to get Irisa out of here.”  
“I'm working on it.”  
“What else do you have in that crazy bow and arrow gimmick bag?” Irisa said.   
“I got plenty.”

Chapter thirty-eight   
TJ reached for the arrow while the darkness moved, and the pressing beast of the black silk bit at the ribbons of the stairway. It was shuffling like tiny islands between the gulfs.   
Below was the madcap hunger of darkness where the shadows were given birth from. More and more things slipped forward with a slithering thirst. The breath of hell was fast approaching.  
A snicker could be heard while they enjoyed their rampage in the dark. They slipped with evil deeds, shades smothered with frantic leaps. Their faces hidden with hunger, their childish giggles toiled like a drunkard nightmare. Their eyes struck with an unnatural lust for death while they poured through the cellar. They were unseen by the witnesses still above on the top of the stairs, so tiny against the only door. Only the darkness moved.   
TJ might be wondering about what Irisa said, but his thoughts turned to the thought of his fleet of arrows against an old house like this. What good were his weapons against shadows?   
The crumbling sounds continued to crackle in the cellar space, and the stairs broke and snapped like twisting spine growing in the bottom of the house. Irisa felt the floor shudder as she stopped herself from falling.   
And the floor broke away with her on it.   
Hahaha! I found it funny to watch them fumble, squirm. Nothing like a game of horrors for these young people. I wanted to give them the night of their lives!  
Irisa was trapped on that tiny island of steps that broke away below. She fell down a notch, her figure seemingly vanished below. Where no one could reach her across the gulfs. Her shouts filled the air while she clung to the broken island beneath the others.  
She was trapped in the waiting abyss below while the child-like patter grew closer to her. 

Chapter thirty-nine  
This house grew into a prison of closed doors, and the things of darkness floated around like a cloud. At the bottom of the attic stairway, the flood of footsteps waiting, a horde of fleeing shadows roared over the crafted wooden ledges. Moving upward, faster, like a swarm reaching the top of the stairs with a crawling urge.   
With a pouring, rummaging flight, like a nimble black cat moving between the arched steps, the shadows leaped into a bigger, louder presence. They stirred upwards with a stumble until they invaded the attic stairway with belated souls knitted together.   
Whatever it was moved further through the nectar darkness until they climbed the upper slopes of the steps. Until they reached the steps where the Doctor and myself were in plain view.   
The Doctor turned to the doorway as her silky hair swept around her curvy neck. She saw only the empty doorway, nothing else. There's nothing. This naught made from wood showed no promise of life.   
With a pause, the Doctor looked downward against better judgment, and saw the ravages of the dark grinning back at her. Her lips pursed while she tilted her head slightly as she saw the single string of red trailing over the abundance of stairs. The Doctor gave the yard a tug with her hands, and he could the string pull away with surprising ease.   
The string was a loose end.   
She whirled around to pull the string again, reeling the long piece in her hands to find the other end was completely cut off. Or, rather, sheered off like large cleft of a knife perfectly swiped it. The Doctor realized she left the poor boy downstairs below on his own.   
Now her eyes tightened with me while her hands held the tiny knot of string. The Doctor tossed the string away after she untied it from her finger. The young boy did not matter to me.   
With a lashing of pent-up fury, the Doctor hooked her hands around her collars while she took the coat off to reveal the more polite clothing that hanged on her, wearing gloating slacks to complete the set. She looked more like a lady aviator. She discarded her coat on the chair as she felt less threatened by the house. Only her feelings stirred like fire.   
“Still fighting shadows?” I said.   
“What happened to the boy?” the Doctor asked.   
“Who?”   
“You know his name. Paisley White.”  
“Ah, we'll say he's a little more comfortably off,” I said.   
“I don't like your definition of 'comfortably off.' If you harmed him, I'll make sure you won't enjoy the rest of your days.”  
“Really?” I said. “You're cut off from your so-called friends that you have just thrown away to the side. You're trapped like a mangled mouse in a cage. Your faithful companion is clinging in despair. And your sonic device is useless in this house.”  
“So you managed to depower it?” the Doctor said.   
“There are many things I can do here,” I said. “I welcome all of you to the long sleep.”  
“Stop using your cheap parlor tricks. I'm certain you made yourself a Faraday Cage. That would stop my sonic screwdriver from affecting you.”  
“Is that a nervous twitch I'm feeling from you?” I sneered. “Or is it fear? You're trying to explain everything by your science again. I hope that's delicious fear I'm hearing in your voice.”  
“You're not a ghost, but a leech that steals energy from your victims to suit your feeding lust.”  
“Oh, you seem so closed-minded to the prospect of the supernatural world. Maybe you're all wrong about it? Why don't you give in?”  
“No.”  
“You're trembling,” I told her.   
“You don't scare me.”  
“I should. Everyone should. I am LIVING space! I am this house!”  
The Doctor said. “You made a mistake bringing me here.”  
“Why?”  
“Because, right now, I'm VERY angry.”  
“You're an excitable woman. A stupid woman.”  
“A misogynist too. Why doesn't that surprise me?” the Doctor said.   
While the Doctor turned to the TV set, still flickering with an opaque glow, she could see the radiant cloud of my images taking shape.   
The Doctor crouched to meet next to the TV to look me in the eye, her face lovely in a feast of anger. She relaxed as her arms cradled over her knees, offering a note of sarcasm.   
Though I began to flood the TV set, my images stretching like a landscape of strange snow, my leg began climbing out of the TV screen with a twitchy, vibrant prose. 

Chapter forty   
I moved like a character jumping out from the screen in slow motion, a slow-mo prop of horror. I looked more like a slender man than human, definite characteristics showed I was a thin giant.   
My chiseled face gleamed with an irate tone while I gloated above her with a wild, expansive greeting. So tall. Taller than she. I could almost feel the ceiling over my looming head.  
My jumbled transition settled into a stable figure who hovered over her at a fierce height. He was thin as toothpicks. I looked more real than ever before, and skidded along like a bone man.   
“Have you finally come to show your true self?” the Doctor said as she got up to meet me in person.   
“What are you? Angel or demon?” I asked.  
“Neither,” the Doctor replied.   
“I can still hear you falter.”  
The Doctor ignored me as she plowed into the conversation: “What about those creatures I hear pattering about in the house? Are they your slaves?  
“My minions.”  
“Slaves, then?”  
“They're known as the Rakshasas,” I said. “They live in the dark, and they pull potential victims into the gulf with them.”  
“Where you feed?”  
“Precisely. It's very practical, isn't it?”  
“You're just a cosmic leech who will engorge on himself like a fat pig to a butcher's shop.”  
“Bah. We've been through this conversation before. This tremendous power allows me to find immortality I yearn for,” I said. “The Rakshasas bring me the goods.”  
“And these little Jawas are part of your sick design. I've heard of them. They're little leeches who reside in the very outer realms of the universe. They eat the dark matter of the universe.”  
“You have a fine mind. You understand so much.”  
“This house, this floating meteor it's on, that's your idea of immortality? It feels more like a curse,” the Doctor said. “Always stuck doing the same thing.”  
“Call it what you will, but I have made my greatest achievement.”  
The Doctor continued to taunt me, “You're just an empty shell. All doors, windows. No substance.”  
“Now you're starting to wear down my patience,” I said.  
“I'm glad to hear it.”  
I towered over her again like a bully looking for a weakness. I was several times the size and height of the Doctor, standing on thrusting legs. I threw a tawdry rage as the rest of his body adjusted on his stilted legs, thin, disjointed, gaunt, a poisonous thrill hanging on my thin arms. The Doctor simply matched wits with me, and much more.   
I reached out with my corpse-like hands and gripped her throat with a masculine strength that was almost devil-like. The feeling of his hands, fingers, were icy-cold like rivers of chills running down her throat.   
My scheming hands slipped around her neck like far-reaching shadows while my grin slithered with triumphant rage. The Doctor wouldn't give me the time of day. I will feed on her!  
I grew angry now, my savage grip tightened like iron cords. My violent, ruthless approach dragged the Doctor around like she was a doll, and my hands threw her to the floor.   
However, in this case, the Doctor didn't let me bother her any. She lifted from the ground ready for another conflict with the old, old house. I was losing my calm. 

Part four  
Chapter forty-one  
Oh yes, I was growing angry now. Good going, Doctor. My expressions quelled any suspicions as I towered like a tall monster. The Doctor could feel the painful cold around her neck as she massage with her hand. She could almost feel a cough in her chest exploding.   
My bald head was an enormous crown circled by the wave of hair that hanged around his neck like a mink. It made me look more sinister, his thin lips settled like a dangerous smile that grew razor sharp.   
“What is your name?” the Doctor said.   
“That does not matter now.”  
The Doctor shouted, “What is your name? Tell me what is your name! Are you so afraid to tell me?”  
“Mephistopheles.”  
“I don't believe you. That is a myth.”  
“Some pieces of fiction has truth in it.”  
“That is stuff of fiction. Nothing more.”  
“You believe what you want, but I will show you what is real...”  
I nodded to the Doctor as my longish coat, almost gothic in theme, rustled with a papery thrill. My feet seemed too big and blocky for my gaunt figure, my height sifting over her.   
“You are nothing real. Just a lost soul trapped in a house,” the Doctor said.  
“I always felt this house and I were like inseparable twins!” I said. “Yet it fed on me surely, slowly, for many years, though I never feared the house once when I lived here in the dark countryside of men's minds. I was richest when dwelling in their shadows. And I followed into the house. So the house and I became the same, sharing a life force...”  
“If you were going to tell me your life story, I should have brought a book to read,” the Doctor quipped.   
I ignored her as I threatened to hover over her with my elongated frame like a savage beast in human form. My hands opened and closed while my eyes laid on her like the dead of night.   
“The house wouldn't let me go,” I said. “And I won't let it go. And yet something happened. My soul seemed possessed...”  
“Or transferred,” the Doctor added.   
“It felt like the house tore into itself. It was as if my anguish, my hatred of mankind, carved a way into this immortality I sought. The house left the earth to keep traveling. It lives in me. And I live in it.”  
“And so you roam the universe in your feeding frenzy?:” the Doctor said. “Your thirst will never be quenched.”  
“Yes, yes, that's the price of immortality,” I said.   
“You're just another one of those boring egomaniacs who thinks he's more important than others,” the Doctor said.  
“Then, Time-Lord, we have much in common.”  
“So you heard of us?” the Doctor said.  
“I am Mephistopheles. I know much. I have come across rumors on my travels, and how your dying race secretly fell in between the empty crevices of the universe. Hiding, always hiding. Now I finally found one of you.”  
“I won't let you get away with this,” the Doctor said.   
“I'll show you power beyond your thoughts,” I announced. “Infinite power. Immortality that lets you see civilizations rise and fall.”  
“Gloat, gloat, gloat. Nothing is forever,” the Doctor said.   
“Heh. Your friends are merely appetizers to me. You're the four course meal,” I glowered. “Why did you think I lured you here? I'll suck the soul out of you!”  
I stepped towards the Doctor as my vile teeth looked like tiny pincers, small drills of piercing rage. My clawing fingers reached for her throat like gnarly branches of hate.   
The Doctor could almost feel the eager fingernails carving into her with nimble ease. She began to choke as she felt her breath leave her lips. I became gleeful in my intent.   
Her hands flattened against the floor while she wrestled with my intruding presence. I opened my mouth into a yawning, gaping hole, a wide abyss that was ready to bite her face, my toothy grip growing bigger. Against the rippling flesh of my features, a deconstruction of horror, there were only pointed fangs that swallowed everything whole. Including her.   
And it became dark.   
The Doctor fell into a place of darkness as her struggling form stood in the gulf wrapping around her. She felt the wreckage of pain while the womb of darkness held her. She could no longer see the house itself, my house. She could only see the nothing before her.   
It was so dark.   
So dark. 

Chapter forty-two  
Crumbling sounds still roared as the soaking black embers tore at the house cellar like a stifling cloud. Those blazes of hell, unseen, stirred from the black pool below, choking, deceiving. Everything was tearing apart here like a nightmare.   
With a steady hand, TJ lifted the bow and arrow with a swiftness. His eyes penetrated the black gulfs next to him. He was going to hold the attackers off while Adair and Irisa tried to open the door behind him. So far, it wasn't working. Little fingers crawled out from the darkness, thousands of them, searching, feeling.   
Irisa fell from the ledge.   
She dangled below.   
“Keep the lights on her!” TJ shouted.   
“It's getting closer to her,” Adair said.   
“Yeah, remind me another time.”  
In a stance, TJ kept the arrow in the niche while he remained calm in his watchful gaze. Somehow he was praying for greater strength, hoping that he would do this right. He had grabbed the arrow with a small tightline attached to it. He waited between shudders and shaking as Irisa grew restless on the other side of the gulfs.   
He was going to try to connect the ledge below with one below, and create a tightline that she could use to climb upwards. As long as Adair could shine the flashlights down, TJ might have a good chance of making a shot.   
“Keep to the right, Irisa,” TJ said.   
“All right, all right!” the girl shouted.   
With a finalized note, TJ eased the bow and arrow in a downward motion as he shot it in a straight line while the house was shaking around him. So was the little fingers that wiggled like a filthy menace clutching for souls.   
The arrow made a hissing sound before reaching the ledge a mere inches from the girl's feet. The young girl made a complaint as the taunt line fixed near her: “That's cutting it close!”  
TJ ignored the comment as he stayed on the edge of the ledge, seeing the young girl still below him a ways. He cold hear the snickering and huddled footsteps moving near her.   
“Climb up the rope,” TJ said. “We'll pull you up!”  
“I'm scared,” Irisa said.   
“Come on, climb up the rope,” Adair said. “We'll help you along the way.”  
“I'm still going to slap you when I get there.”  
“I'm sure you will.”  
Irisa collected herself before getting a hold of the tightline, her hands wrapping around it. Her figure remained on the ledge while she gave a heave, her hands collapsing around the next bit of the rope.   
At the same time, TJ and Adair grabbed the rope on their side as they pulled upwards, giving all their strength into lifting her weight. Irisa felt the shifting darkness around her while she clung to the end of the rope. She wasn't very heavy which was a good thing. TJ felt his muscles tighten as he pulled on the rope again.   
So did Adair who helped with steady hand, and their bruising forms pulled the girl like sailors on a boat reeling in someone from the drowning ocean. They weren't going to let the tiny rope slip from their hands, holding with all their might. Their foreheads perspired with sweat while their faces clenched with this ritual exercise.   
Their hands moved in careful, smooth clutches, holding the rope as they pulled harder. They tugged at the rope while they struggled to bring Irisa up to their own ledge. It took longer than it should, but the hour of midnight washed over them with an angry scowl as the girl got away from the lower depths.   
Escaping the fortress of tiny fingers that poured out from the thundering darkness that toiled. Endless fingers, sneering, lifting, reaching for their next victim. My children was coming for them.   
I sent them.   
And the guests were on my dinner list.   
When Irisa reached the ledge, she got up on her feet right away. Now the rope slunk away as she was safe again, throwing her arms around her cousin. Below in the dark embers the rage of severed fingers continued to build in its morbid stretching of the tides, like living worms. The spidery web of blackness linked the room with more creepy fingers rising towards them.   
“I'm never doing that again,” Irisa said.   
“Let's get out of here,” Adair said. “We got to find a way through that door before this whole place goes.”  
Adair tried the door again, but it was pinned close like it was glued by some strange force. He turned the doorknob without success, and the frame of wood seemed to laugh at him. Why was this happening? It was like a nightmare that nagged. With a shoulder bump, he banged against the door while the others helped.   
“Must be a way to get that door open,” Irisa said. “Maybe there's a key around here?”  
“I don't know,” Adair said. “That's stupid. Why would there be a key be around here?”  
“Try the explosive one!”  
“That would send all of us falling below!”  
Without a doubt, TJ blamed himself for being here. If he hadn't believed in that voice he heard, perhaps none of them would be trapped here in this strange cellar of nightmares. This house held so many surprises for them, always a twisting fate.   
While reloading the arrow on the bow, TJ swore to himself that he was going to protect these two people. He could see the dark following them through the giant gulfs like a rising beast of nature. How could he stop something like this?

Chapter forty-three  
Now the Doctor stood in a different place. There was a slight chance that the great darkness took her in like a storm of horror. This cold, cold place. It was a place where the dead would go.   
With a cold churn, the Doctor felt the thirsty awe of the dark tugging at her like a fierce presence. She could feel cold fingers brushing against her like sweeping shadows.   
The abomination of the dark chased her down to this place with a dull ache. She grew frustrated at not knowing where she was. I gave her this dark world to visit.   
“Walk deeper into the darkness,” I said. “Come to this special place I saved for you.”  
“So you can feed on me?” the Doctor said.   
“I could savor you for a long time, a soul like yours. You lived a life many times over.”  
“You're just a fear-monger who takes souls and disposes of them.”  
“Everyone comes here. Come this way to a dark place where everyone eventually goes,” I chimed. “Now reach our with your pretty hand.”  
“No.”  
“It's the only way you can leave here is by accepting. This is the only thing that is real,” I told her.   
“Your simple trickery won't work with me,” the Doctor said.   
“Follow the darkness, and into the greater darkness that awaits you. It's a gift to be here. Let's go together.”  
“I'm not going to let you.”  
“I can smell death off you.”  
“Yes, the death of so many lives I've know.”  
“No, this is a different kind of death. Her name is Soreen.”  
“How dare you mention her name?”  
“She's been in your shadows. Soreen is the long shadow.”  
“I'll make you regret saying that, little man.”  
The Doctor snapped her hands up to her forehead while fighting a stagnant headache that wolfed down her thoughts. Her sleight of hair fell against her neck with a softness, hanging with a slippery bliss.   
Again she could feel the tiny brushes of wind that seemed to pull on her, crawling all over her. And me. It was like she was in the middle of the room with large ants. She didn't like this intrusion in her mind. 

Chapter forty-four  
She recognized this feeling that assailed her senses full of doubt. It was the feeling of the unknown. And the Doctor always confronted the unknown in every possible corner of the universe.   
She remained in the foot of the darkness while she heard the Rakshasas approaching from the depths like children of darkness. Her fingers tightened into balls of anger while she lifted her head towards the nothingness.   
“Stop!” the Doctor shouted.   
“Please give in to the engines of fire,” I said. “You're so close. I can feel it in every inch of the house. Your soul could feed a thousand houses like me.”  
“Release my friends, and I'll consider giving myself to you,” the Doctor said.   
“What? You're in no position to bargain, my willing slave,” I said. “Your friends matter none to me.”  
“That's where you and I differ,” the Doctor said. “I'll show you how wrong you are for taking these victims.”  
“What... what are you doing?”  
“I know what you are, and you're a parasite. Mephistopheles is not real. And you brought me to the place where you're most vulnerable. Do you know what I do to little parasites like you?”  
“Stop what you're doing!”  
The Doctor felt the siphoning temper lifting as she stood idle in her place, remaining a totem of strength while the billowing winds shifted against me. This struggling heap of darkness toyed her long enough, and now she could feel no more the shadows swelling to her.   
She could feel the rage in her chest beating while the maelstrom of her thoughts made a whiplash in her head. She was going to banish my darkness with her own mind while she fought the clanging roughness of this place. She was not going to let me taste her.   
There was never any arcane secrets or haunts. There was never any magic or any turn of dark science. Was there ever such a thing as a haunted house? The Doctor believed it for a moment. How do you scare a haunted house? Like this.   
“You want fear? You feed on fear?” the Doctor said. “I'll show you fear! Look into my thoughts!”  
The Doctor shut her eyes as she concentrated. Her face twisted into a stoic rage as her chest beat with a stronghold of carnage. The storm of her thoughts filled my own head like a rampage, a crowd of teeming thoughts pouring like a outrage.   
Pressing against the darkness, the Doctor became this powerful figure in the center of this abyss. She couldn't let anything intimidate her. With her eyes wildly shut, and her mind vanquishing any intrusion, the Doctor instead opened the mental gateway to her own thoughts.   
She invited me to the battlefield of her mind. It was a frightening place of death. The darkness around her began to fade.   
“What are you?” I cried. “What are you?”  
I could no longer fight her. With a sudden sweeping, and the walls rippling with life, every door in the Hastings house forced open as if it was quelled by some greater presence. I could not stop her.   
Something overwhelmed the house as all the doors, and the cellar, dropped open with a fearful gap. 

Chapter forty-five  
With a springing action, and a knot of tension, Adair lent his hand to budging the door. Maybe with his strength, and TJ's help, they might be able to battle an uphill struggle in getting the cellar door to open.   
Their fierce fingers, like a tribal warrior causing a debacle, the men worked longer to pool their resources together. Instead the cellar door seemed to laugh in their faces. It wasn't budging an inch. It was getting to be a waste of time. Despite Adair being like a mountain of power, he couldn't get move the weight of the stubborn door.   
“It's no good,” Adair said.   
“Try again,” TJ said. “I think I felt the door move.”  
“I didn't notice anything. And it's getting darker.”  
“Blast it!” Irisa said. “That black sludge down there is making everything dark on dark. I can't see past my nose.”  
“The torches aren't helping much anymore,” Adair said.   
The young girl felt the wisps of darkness trailing against her like far-reaching hands clamping from below. The dividing of blackness below began to look like seeping acrylic paint soiling the boggy depths, too dark, like a growing gloom, like the twisting of nightfall. More fingers appeared next to each other like a wall of infinite digits. It was a maelstrom of horror.  
Irisa wondered if she was hearing something calling out to her with a motherly charm. Was the house saying something to her? Could the very gates of the pit know what to tell her? She was having her own conversation with the dark just like she used to when she was kid.   
It wounded like something to her. The bludgeoning of the walls, the pulse of the floors, and the sleeping edges muted by the mush-like clouds that rippled like a seething panther lurking in the jungle.   
Those garbled thugs of clandestine eyes moved towards her. They wanted to be friends with her. She could feel a sickness in her stomach. Irisa wasn't even bothering with what her cousin or TJ was saying.   
“Thanks for getting my cousin safe,” Adair said.   
“That's what I'm here for,” TJ said.   
“No, really, she might be a damn nuisance, but she's the only family I got left.”  
“I believe you.”  
“And to think that I used to play tricks on her when she was little like pulling her pug nose off with my fingers. It was a hoot.”  
“I think I can hear the shadows telling em to come to them,” Irisa said.   
“Don't listen to them. They're just trying to get to you,” Adair said.   
“I hadn't heard that children's rhyme since I was a kid.”  
“Ignore it.”  
“They know every word, every turn of phrase. It's unreal.”  
Both TJ and Adair worked together to get the door open, but they were none for the better despite their joint efforts. It grew futile against a swelling house that lived in shadows. When TJ turned to Irisa standing close to him, he tried to fetch her from the edge. His voice nagged her.   
“Help us with the door,” TJ said. “Take your mind off them.”  
The young girl grew struck with the abomination of the dark that swirled endless in that lurid, crepuscular Stygian river that bounded for her, and others. That inky cloud darkened with an overcast of wretched grime, always restless like a crowd of misfits playing tricks.   
Her childhood was always a happy one with good parents, loyal cousin and a good aunt. And yet there was one thing that chewed her memory like waggling molars, chipping away at her thoughts. It was the one thing that weighted on her since she was a little girl.   
“The shadows tried to tell me that same rhyme now,” Irisa said. “The very same I used to hear from the closet in my childhood room. I won't even go near that closet.”  
“It's all in your head, girl,” Adair said.   
“No, they're saying the rhyme over and over again.”  
The door snapped open with a jarring effect, a rabbiting motion that nearly tripped up TJ who fell solidly through the doorway. His face slapped against the floor as an ache carved into his thoughts. He could see the whole of the kitchen again after so long.   
I was dying.   
Everything was dying. The song of death was here. 

Chapter forty-six  
So all the other doors opened up like a big game in the house. Every single door, including the cellar, made a peek-a-boo as all access ripped wide. Now the harsh winds blew through the house like a fleeing rage. As if a fleeing soul was rushing loose somewhere in me.   
“Let's go!” TJ shouted.   
He threw himself against the door to keep it open, inviting the others to hurry up. His shoulder pressed against the battered wood as he didn't feel any resistance from the house at all. Was I giving up?   
Now it was Irisa who was left on the ledge as the dark of the stairs flirted around her with a moving threat, a swelling darkness that seemed to be dying off. That Cimmerian, lightless rage bubbled upwards like a vague thing, indistinct in its making.   
What were these fingers belonging to? Were they demonic talons or wretched souls? With one final effort to reach the prize, it lifted towards Irisa who was still on the ledge. It was a lucid charge through the dark cellar, joyous in its nebulous intent.   
“Come on, what are you waiting for?” Adair called out to his cousin.   
“Something's got me!” Irisa shouted from the doorstep ledge.   
Adair jumped out to get his cousin free, helping her from the blackest pitch that whirled with sea-like movements, drowning her, and him. Adair was sure that the house wanted to get Irisa for a victim, but he got in the way.   
With a push, he sent Irisa flying safely into the kitchen while he was snatched up by dark hands from the nether chaos blow. Now it would be Adair who would give them the company they sought like lonely ghosts pulling down, grabbing, nagging.   
One final meal.   
Before I went away...  
The dark welcomed his shouts and the rushing nightmare caught him in a desperate lunge as he fell. Now the house got itself another meal in the form of Adair Sesay.   
“No! No! No! No! No! No! NO! NO!” Irisa shouted.   
TJ didn't have a choice but to drag the girl from the kitchen while the ragged blackness slowly sunk back to its original domain, out of space, out of time, falling back to the soot-dark abyss prowling with depths.   
The cellar was turning back to normal. The attacking dark was gone now, and with it Irisa's cousin who whose voice still trailed in the hallows. There was no saving him.

Chapter forty-seven  
My threatening voice that lived in the house retreated to a lonely part of the structure like a frightened child. The cryptic whispers kept asking over and over again. I kept saying: “What are you?”  
What are you?  
The Doctor opened her eyes as she was satisfied with the turn of events. Now I knew exactly how infinitesimal it was compared to the rest of everything. To the Doctor.  
Though it was a vulgar, rather crude, in turning the tables, the Doctor figured there was no nice way to go about it. She found herself still in the upper room where the flicker of candles stirred with some life.   
This time, the candles were melting away. The wax was peeling away from the hot surface of the candles.   
Her eyes caught sight of the floor where it began to pool with blood, an ailing wetness of ill that spoiled the sheets. It spread with a cherry-red flowering as the slippery channels of blood lingered further on the sheets like a running river. The Doctor ignored it circled around the room until she heard a click from another part of the room.   
It was a dying house.   
My house.   
She had stepped into the deepest chamber of the house that was locked away from sight. Her fingers traced over the walls, her tips felt the pressing sheet woven into the wood.   
As the house dying, she was able to regain some measure of her sonic screwdriver again. She looked at sad state of my corpse laying on the floor, a stagnant, thin refuge of sickness.   
The Doctor towered over me like a giant as her hand pulled the candle closer. I could feel her anger peeling away the heart of the house. I could see her as she stood with triumph while I remained on the floor.  
I was dying.   
And she was no longer my doctor.  
“How dare you enter my sanctuary!” I uttered.   
“Or you'll do what? Nothing, most likely. You're just a scared thing hiding in his safe place, right?”  
“I thought it was a good place at the time. I could cling to this house...”  
“And look where it got you. Disillusion of grandeur,” the Doctor said.  
“It worked for a time.”  
“You made a habit of possession people and things. That's what you are. Parasite. You take, but never give.”  
“I have to survive. So few of us left.”  
“So you are one of those cosmic traveling parasites who recklessly tore a hole in space and time,” the Doctor said. “I'm going to put everything back in place.”  
“Let me go,” I said.   
“Have you taken leave of your senses?”  
“What are you doing?” I said in a small voice.   
“Putting a stop to this farce. I knew there was no such thing as a haunted house. It took me a little longer than it should have. I must be getting a tad old.”  
“Let. Me. Live.”  
“And have you go leech on someone else? I can't have you hauling around my secrets with you.”  
“I won't betray you.”  
“I'll have to be a fool to believe that.”  
“I'm afraid...”  
“You should be,” the Doctor said.  
I tried to snuggle against the Doctor's boot, hoping to get on her better side. She kicked me away with a sideswipe of her boot, her face framed with the lofty shades of disgust.   
Her eyes grew dark with a wary promise. She had little love for the evil cluster that wasted away before her. I was dying on the floor. She took so much from me. My body was becoming a smudge on the floor. A black spot.   
I continued to dissolve from the waste of existence that I was. Something that possessed a house. Something cruel. Something anchored. No more. Except I ran into something worse than myself. The Doctor.   
“I saw far into your past,” I said in a guttural voice. “You've... shown mercy.”   
“You got the wrong person,” the Doctor said.   
“I don't know what you are...”  
“I'm sorry about this. There's no other way.”  
“Don't leave me...”  
That was exactly what the Doctor did. She left me here to rot away in the final moments inside the empty house. It was the final note while she stepped away. I could feel a final breath.   
With a final chore, the Doctor reached into her coat pocket while fishing through the contents. She grabbed the sonic screwdriver and pocketed. I could watch her leaving me while a small breath hanged on her lips with sadness.   
I was dying.   
Forever dying. 

Chapter forty-eight  
Now the grandfather clock was working for a few moments again without any outer influence, and there grew a freedom that rippled around the house. It was hitting 12:01 now. It was strange.   
The old residence was its own place again. The Doctor heard the churning hammers striking against the bells while the hour of midnight grew under sway. It brought relief.   
Do you hear the clocks?  
Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick Tock.   
It wouldn't be long before this house returned to its proper place. No longer leading into the further pockets of the universe, the house would simply dissolve back like original space. This house would not suffocate.   
The Doctor found no reason to stay here anymore as she turned to walk through the empty room and back down the attic stairs again which fled back to the lower rooms. This place didn't need a doctor anymore. It needed a perfect rest. She put her long coat back on, drifting, dancing cloth.  
Her footsteps with the clicking heels grew majestic, pressing down with further confidence as she walked down the barren stairway toiling with a guilt-garbed spiral. Her walking sounded like the sweet noise of triumph as she moved through the hallowed aisle, but why did she feel bad about her? It was her decision to wipe forever a menace in one fallen swoop.   
Her hand slid down the railing as she followed it out into the next room which was the study. Was there a note of darkness welcoming her back? The hour of midnight was fast approaching.   
The Doctor decided not to give any funeral eulogies since it was perhaps better to leave in silence. She stepped out of the attic stairway like a magician leaving the stage. 

Chapter forty-nine  
Behind her the clock gave a chilling ring when it hit midnight as the wrangling sounds poured like a storm of shadows dissolving. Reaching the end of the stairs, the Doctor could see the study room lost in a violent fit.   
Signs of wreckage was everywhere in the confined space from the fallen chair to the moved desk leaving scars on the floor. Overturned books scattered through the room. Worst of all she found Paisley's camera and bag in the middle of the wreckage.   
She could hear her surviving companions shouting, “Doctor! Doctor! Where are you?”  
Yes, that was TJ. She recognized his voice. The Doctor knew he would do where since he always figured a way to survive. At least they were not voices of the ghosts left in the Hastings house, but of proper people.   
Taking in a deep breath, she could see Paisley's last act of defiance in a series of Kodiak photos. Many of the final snapshots were blurred, but the added flash of the cameras helped to give an idea of what was seen in the room. Paisley was nowhere to be seen in the camera as he was using it. She saw a blotch inside the photos which would have made feelings sink in horror. The photos gave the final cry.   
She saw the darkness swirling in the photos until there grew definite outlines. There grew a slight, creaking proof which flickered like raising shadows, and she saw the staring crevices that were the creatures eyes portrayed in the photos: the Rakshasas. They weren't very good photos.   
Without the host possessing the his house in outer space, the entire place would be exported back to Hastings, England. Or perhaps it would simply deteriorate in the cold wonders of space?   
Yes, she had an explanation for everything, didn't she?   
The Doctor gripped the school bag while taking the camera in her hands. The slosh of dampening effects in the photos were the remains of what happened to Paisley himself... he was brought back into the darkness by those creatures. There grew a desperation in the pictures. She still heard her companions calling out to her.   
“In here!” the Doctor shouted.   
When the Doctor moved towards the door, she saw TJ and Irisa Cooper meeting up with her at the hallway. Their tired faces, and lethargic voices, claimed fear from running through the broken house. Irisa looked frail as a limping dog, her face sprinkled with injuries like a devoted faith-goer finding her beliefs shattered.   
“Where's Paisley?” Irisa said.   
“This is all that's left of him, I'm afraid,” the Doctor said.   
She offered the bag, camera and photos to Irisa who looked at the possessions like they're a disease. This whole house was a plague of horror. With a reviled effort, Irisa took everything off the Doctor's hand. It became an emotional abyss for the young girl who couldn't hold back her tears. She was falling apart with sadness, and anger.   
“No, this can't be right,” Irisa said. “No, no.”  
“There's nothing I could do,” the Doctor said.   
“First Adair, now Paisley.”  
The Doctor turned her head to TJ who looked a little crestfallen himself. His eyes lifted with a vague uneasiness.   
“We had a casualty at the very last moment,” TJ said.   
“It wouldn't be a good idea to stay here. The echoes of time and space are leaving this place. It'll be like the universe is spring cleaning. We need to leave.”  
“Save him!” Irisa said. “Save them both!”  
The Doctor turned as a slight frustration crawled over her features. There was a pause on her lips while she thought about the next thing she'll say. Instead she felt the ache of the heels that was grinding in her feet, making a mental note to herself that she'll never wear heels again.   
Now it was easy to see Irisa was growing angry as her eyes were whacked with cascading tears. The young girl felt like she was in the spotlight as she felt the tears run down her cheeks that hurt her like tiny knives. The youth and idealism was broken by the truth of reality laid before her.   
The Doctor seemed more like a feminist drill sergeant grilling those closest to her. You could feel the toll of the clock still staking its claim on the house, and the ringing bells collided with a somber echo. Irisa ordered the Doctor to go back to help her friends with a wind of sorrow.   
“They're gone now!” the Doctor said. “There's nothing we can do for them!”  
“I won't leave without them!” Irisa said. “They're in the house somewhere.”  
“It's not good that this happens, but life has many hits and misses. And this day isn't a hit.”  
“Is that what everything to you is, Doctor? A scorecard?” Irisa retorted.   
“All that matters is that we're still here. And we should go.”  
Irisa felt defeated as her face tightened into a knot of tension, shame and finally anger. Perhaps, soon, a little bit of acceptance fell on her features. She felt like she was abandoning everyone here.   
The Hastings house stood on its last call as the walls clamored with a brittle composure. It was in fact the house that poured with the last of darkness. Nothing but echoes.   
“They're just ghosts now,” the Doctor continued. “I'm sorry.”

Chapter fifty  
With a casual shrug, and a heap of anger, Irisa Cooper decided to walk away from the study room. She was still young, head-strong probably like her mother was. There was a little temper bubbling in her emotions like a boiling pot.   
The spectacle of the house grew into a graveyard that stood with an idle chill. With a change of scenery, and the spill of dissolving shades, the daylight began to slip over the wooden floors with a welcome warmth. This house may be a broken heap of collected stairways and old rooms, but the wealth of daylight lifted the burden of shadows from it.   
The Hastings house gave a sigh, a ruin. And yet, with a snippet of life, the windows allowed the shifting daylight to pour in like a hurricane or brightness. It was a change from night to day.   
The rooms were no longer a shell of nothing, but a revived note of beauty. There grew a strong stir of life.   
This renewed daylight pooled in the lobby space and also in many of the rooms, and a breath of warm weather laid against the walls with a thankful grace. The doors were open.   
While the travelers worked their way down the stairs, and the washing light poured with ease across the carpeted floors. The Doctor would see the details better now as she looked around the bright day that soaked outside. They were back in England now after the house transported back to its original roots in Hastings.   
The swing of daylight grew into a splendid thing while the travelers found their way out of the old house that stood like an aching call to wary creaks and hanging chandeliers that no longer hanged with sorrow.   
Now the house creaked once more while in a better place. It became more habitable. For many, the house was never gone... only forgotten. As if their memories were erased of it.   
Now the Doctor could see the earthlings run around outside in the neighborhood as if nothing happened. There was the park, the streets and the row of houses that filled the English suburbans. And there was the TARDIS sitting there at the very edge of midnight no more. 

Chapter fifty-one  
In the rural setting of the Hastings town, with the knot of traffic pulling into the streets with a puff of bad smoke, some people walked around on the sidewalks exchanging a few conversation bits in their steep British accents. It was good to be home again.   
Not for some. Irisa Cooper felt a little ragged from her experience in the house, and the humorless chill resigned in her features as she stood before the stilted blue box that stood in the clearing. She felt the gentle sweep of the summer wind, but it did not matter to her without her friend and cousin to share the moment with her.   
The Doctor knew the TARDIS made its mark here, and would blend in the old English surroundings like it always did. She reached for the key to open the doors which opened to a grinding, different scene that impossible.   
The maelstrom of the console stood inside while everything looked bigger on the inside than the outside. TJ joined the others as they collected themselves around the centerpiece. Oh yes, it was indeed a 1950s antique that looked like a police box.   
Irisa glared at the English totter houses before glancing back at the interior of the TARDIS that was an illusion. It became a madness to her as she wished for a ticket back to the familiar setting she needed.   
The Doctor stood next to the police box as if expecting the usual round of applause or response. Instead young Irisa Cooper remained tongue-tied. Maybe a little frightened.   
The day grew bright with the golden glow of sunlight soaking the streets with a forceful warmth while the bigger rage filled Irisa's face as she looked around. She could only see the destruction of reality fixed in that small blue box that opened to her like a magical cabinet.   
“What the hell is that thing?” Irisa said.   
“I wasn't expecting a reply like that,” the Doctor said.   
“What are you, some kind of demon or something?”  
“No, no, it's not like that. That's what you call the TARDIS, and it can travel anywhere in the universe. Much like that old house you were in.”  
“It's your fault, isn't it?” Irisa snapped.   
“What?”  
“I lost two of my best friends to that house, and here you still are.”  
“You're still alive, aren't you? I suggest you should live out the rest of your days as best as you can.”  
“What does it matter?” Irisa said. “My cousin and my fiend are both gone. What am I going to say when I get back home? What am I going to tell their families?”  
“I haven't thought of that,” the Doctor admitted.   
“You're right. You're not even human,” Irisa snarled.   
“Travel comes with a price, always.”  
“At the expense of others?”  
“The house is utterly useless now, and it will not be a threat to anyone.”   
“So it's a win-win solution for you, isn't it?” Irisa said.   
The Doctor forced herself to keep her mouth shut because she was making everything worse by talking. She understood that she might seem aloof, or rather god-like, in the presence of people.   
Now there was a girl throwing a fit, and the Doctor didn't know how to react to it. She felt stuck in her complacency. The Doctor wasn't sure how to handle that.   
Maybe this girl could make a good companion. The Doctor could give Irisa a Quantum Stapler in case she needed to make a call. One fast, certain punch on the Quantum Stapler could send a message to the Doctor anywhere in time and space. Might be handy for some situations.   
Irisa stood before the Doctor not caring if she was going to get chewed out. There was a growing distance between her and the other woman. A dog that's not on a leash was barking now. And Irisa barked loud.  
TJ stepped forward like it was his time to save the day, and he tried to console the young girl. His hands brushed against her shoulders in a small, soothing embrace, but she grew cold to his touch. His eyes narrowed as he could feel the tension in the young girl, more driven.   
Irisa spoke like someone who found a reason to hate. And she hated the Doctor for leaving her friends behind. Irisa couldn't accept the fact that they were gone in that abyss as well as the shadows. There was no longer a tear in the fabric of time and space. The Doctor took care of that with the ease of a surgeon. And yet she couldn't get the young girl's friends back. It was a slight mishap.   
“That's enough of that... thing. That box,” Irisa said.   
“We're trying to help you,” TJ said.   
“I can see you're just as helpless as I am.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“You lose someone in your tracks, leave them behind and move on to your next conquest. And you forget about people as easy as a gardener forgets his flowers if he's gone away too long.”  
“That's not a fair comparison,” TJ said.   
“I think it is.”  
“We're righting wrongs. I like to think I'm doing some good.”  
“I don't want to see you again. Either of you,” Irisa said.   
Irisa Cooper broke off from the Chinese man's offer of solace, instead turned away like someone making a snap judgment. There was a fire of emotions igniting in her. Her eyes blazed with petty accusation. Her heart pumped with a strong wash of hate.   
And she began to run down the street. TJ was going to run after her, hoping to catch up with calm down the flames of fire. Maybe he was like the knight in shining armor in those heroic tales.   
“You should have left me alone!” Irisa shouted as she ran.   
“Leave her,” the Doctor said to TJ.   
“She is broken. It's that damn house. Made her upset,” TJ admitted. “There must be something we must do.”  
“There isn't. This is someone who must fend for herself. No one else can help her now.”  
“We shouldn't abandon her.”  
The Doctor said, “She's on a lone crusade now with her life. She'll eventually find support. I think that's best.”

Chapter fifty-two  
The Doctor stared down the street as the young girl came to a rushing halt. Raising her shoulders in anger, and moving along in a more dignified manner. Elisa Cooper walked along the curb while the sunlight trickled like a wash of golden coins around her. Against the suburban houses that looked more like stunted copies, the girl crossed a front yard before disappearing between the mundane buildings.   
Why did all the houses look the same? Was it some polite statement about the lack of creativity in a small town? It looked ridiculous. Though the haunted house slanted towards the street like an old fool in defeat.   
The Doctor pressed her hand against the scratched blue icon that whistled with a longevity that made even her feel a little old. She held a steady gaze at the young girl who stormed off in a single-minded rage. The Doctor kept Irisa Cooper near the top of the list of possibilities.   
The Doctor bit back her lips as she gathered her thoughts like a writer about to pen her next poem out of the blue. The sweetness of the universe urged her to go back inside the TARDIS, the only home she knew.   
The TARDIS was her church now. It was her religion that she followed around like a loyal convent. She slumped lovingly against the blue box with her shoulder while she continued to watch the girl now a small dot in the distance.   
Despite putting her hands into the deep of her pockets, her face twisting with a alluring face, the Doctor searched for the right words to say. She resumed her pose as she lifted herself from the idle structure of the blue box, stepping forward as if to take everything into account. Her thoughts grew into a passion, her arms crossing over her chest.   
“Like us, TJ, she will need to fight her own demons,” the Doctor said. “And some of those demons can last a long time.”  
“Is there anything we can do for her?” TJ said.   
“Not at the moment.”  
The Doctor could easily pop back into the future to see how young Cooper turned out in her later age, but why make a cheat like that? Wouldn't it better, and more fun, to see how things turned out at their own pace? She decided against the idea.   
The Doctor could hear the constant beeps, and toiling sounds, made the blue box seemed alive with a will of its own. The cutting figures made their way around the console like they were attendees to a funeral.   
She could hear the grinding engines cranking with thunder roaring from the inside, the very heart of the traveling machine. It bellowed with a traffic of loud booms followed by the fantastic charade of vamping noises which sent the box into flight. It was telling her to hurry up and “get in!” Ah, such an impatient time machine, wasn't it?  
Will the Doctor have to hit the console again with a loving touch just before they get off the ground? How many times was she going to have to do that? Maybe everything, including the TARDIS, was getting old?   
As the summer wind mingled with her stalwart figure, the Doctor could feel the fingers of softness brushing between her hair and loosening the threads like a playful song.   
She knew the brushing stir of summer's languish demise, a sobbing change, before autumn would make itself known in this small town of Hastings. Soon the air soothed the town into a slumber.   
Yes, yes, it was time to go without her thoughts delving into the mystery of the earth, the moon and shadows that grew like pressing promises. It wouldn't make sense to stay here. The Doctor didn't want to deal with her own demons either. 

THE END

April 22, 2015  
Approximately 28,297 words


End file.
